Every story has a beginning, middle, and ending. Let’s look at the purpose of each section.
The beginning gets the reader oriented to the story. You need to remember that each reader has no idea where your story is taking place or in which time period. They might assume that the story is where they live and happening today, but even that is unsure. You use the beginning of your story to let them know which exact place the story is happening, such as in the USA or in a different country. You need to show the reader that the place is in downtown of a very big city or in a suburb or in a rural town or in the country or in the forest or on a different planet.
If it’s on a different planet, you need to give enough description so the reader knows how that planet differs from earth. Is it a city on a different planet? Do people walk around freely or do they need special suits? Is there something else they need to know?
You also need to let them know if the time of the story is today, or in the near future, or the distant future, or sometime in the past. You can let them know if it’s today by including items like cell phones or laptop computers or anything that is normal today that wouldn’t be normal ten years ago. If you include things that don’t exist, like a flying car or a robot that handles chores or instantly cooked food, your readers will know your story takes place in the future. Watching television where things are holograms, or having robots as normal beings that people don’t pay much attention to would likely be in the somewhat near future. Flying cars and space travel and such would be in a more distant future.
You can add things from the past that aren’t common today to set your story in the past. If there are dinosaurs, or people living in caves, or no running water, or wearing togas, or have no electricity, or carry revolvers, or don’t have cars, or have steamships, you know the time of when the story takes place. You don’t have to spell it all out, you just have to give them a few clues.
Also in the beginning is the introduction of your characters. Are your characters human or animals? Is your main character a space alien or a firefighter? Who else inhabits the story world? Do the animals talk? Are there dragons or elves or unicorns? Introducing the characters is part of the beginning.
You also need to introduce your main characters in the beginning. You don’t have to introduce them all at once, but your readers need to know who the main character is very early.
The middle of the story is where the action takes place. Your story idea comes to life here. You want something that happens that gives the protagonist a goal. The knight wants to rescue the princess from the dragon, or the princess wants to rescue the dragon from the knight, or the runner learns the date of the foot race. The bully attacks a friend at the park. A thief steals something valuable. An alien spaceship appears and starts shooting. A time traveler makes a mistake and gets stuck in Roman times and needs a lot of electricity to power the time machine in order to get home.
Whatever shakes the main character from his or her ordinary life and forces action starts the middle section. During the middle section, all the conflicts take place. It can be a single battle, or it can be a series of conflicts that keep building and getting harder.
The last battle or conflict ends the middle section and starts the ending section. Does your protagonist achieve the goal? Is he or she successful? Or does your protagonist fail? Your ending tells the result of the success or failure. The protagonist is a hero for succeeding. The protagonist fails but learns something very important. Whatever the outcome, the ending section tells how things have changed. The world is a better place, or the thief is convicted and goes to jail, or the space aliens are defeated and destroyed, or the dragon gets to go home and the princess kicks the evil knight out of the kingdom.
It’s not enough for the reader to just find out whether the protagonist succeeds or fails. You must show what the results of the success or failure are in order that the reader feels satisfied with the story.
In the illustration, you can see that the beginning and ending are the smallest sections and the middle is the longest section. You can decide how long each section should be, but make sure the conflict in the middle is the longest part. Your readers care the most about the conflict so they really want it to take as long as needed.
One last note about the story sections. Even though your story will read from beginning to end, you don’t have to write it in that order. You can start wherever you want and you can write pieces of your story in any order that your creativity takes you. It’s only when you’re ready to start revising your story that you need to put it all in order. Until then, feel free to write it in whichever order helps you get the story written.