Beginning+Middle (or Crisis)+ Ending=Strong Story

Every good performance starts with an opening that is strong and draws the audience into the story. Some of the types of typical openers I use are the Attention Grabber, Quotation, Joke Story, Question or Definition. These elements must be relevant to the plot of the story and should point towards the crisis. Then launch the story as most good stories start.

There are literally thousands of openings from "Once Upon a Time" to "I Heard This From a Friend of a Friend." The possibilities are endless. Just use your imagination and remember the types of good openings. Whether it's the beginning of the performance or the beginning of the story, a strong opening makes for a good story and it should always point to the body or crisis/resolution of the story.

Once the story has started, the next element is the Body or Crisis. Typically, stories use certain standard methods of plot development (crisis and resolution) in the body of the story. These include: chronological order of events leading to the crisis and resolution, description of the time, place and characters, exemplification (use of examples), description of the process, cause and effect , comparison and contrast, division and classification (characters or crises and their classifications) or definition of characters or behaviors. All of these methods work as a standard way to achieve the crisis and resolution necessary to tell a good story. If you are developing original material, they are crucial to creating a strong story.

Once the body or crisis and resolution have been achieved, there are several types of endings that you can use to conclude the story and your presentation. There are of course, traditional endings like They Lived Happily Ever After. As with openings, there are thousands to choose from when ending a tale. But you can also meld the end of the story with the conclusion of your performance by using the following kinds of conclusions. They include a summary of the story, a call for action, references to the beginning of the story, stating the moral of the story or repeating the initial quotation or question from the opening. Whatever you use, remember, it must be relevant to the story. Using strong conclusions makes for a better story and performance.

Sometimes even an old folktale may not have all the elements you would like to have. Perhaps the opening or conclusion is weak or the crisis and resolution does not work. Analysis using these elements of plot structure can help identify weaknesses and by changing them, you can make a stronger story. For example, you may not like the moral or message of the story and have a better way to resolve it. This is up to you as the teller of the tale. Changing a story in some way, only helps to make the story uniquely yours. If you are stuck on some element and cannot resolve the issue, you may want to brainstorm it with another teller to find a new way of resolving elements that do not work within the plot. So use these suggestions as guidelines as a way to make sure the story works for you and that you have crafted all the elements necessary to make that story stronger.