Being a Better Writer: The Keystone · 6:29pm May 23rd, 2017
Welcome back readers! As you may have guessed from this posting date, I had another Monday shift at my part time, hence why you’re getting this today (I’m at the moment writing it up during the early evening of the 22nd, so you’re reading this in what would technically be the future). Nothing too unusual there.
So, let’s dive right into today’s topic, shall we? I really don’t feel like beating around the bush; but rather I’d prefer to just get down to it. Today’s topic comes from … well, it comes from a number of sources, actually. Listening to other authors talk about writing, certainly. Reading a few books and whatnot over the last few weeks. And just following various forums about writing online. Toss all those things into my head, and let simmer for a few hours, and this post and topic is what came from it.
First question: Are you familiar with what a keystone is? You might remember this from your history classes, particularly if they covered the Roman Empire. A keystone was, well, the key to constructing those awesome Roman arches ancient tourists would see everywhere in Rome. And modern tourist still can see in the same places, 3000 years later. You know the shape—the classic pillars with the half-circle on the top?
This design was the one of many things that took Rome to stardom and made them the most influential empire in the world (so influential that many today still underestimate exactly how much of our day-to-day society was shaped by them). It enabled Rome to build bigger, grander, more spacious structure than anyone that had come before them.
So yeah, kind of a big deal. But how did it work? And what does it have to do with writing?
Discover what it all means at Unusual Things!
This is an extremely good point. It highlights the reasons why some of my stories work and some of them don't. It's the degree to which the ending logically flows out of everything else that happened in the story, which is to say, the extent to which at least subconsciously I planned to work toward that ending in the beginning. Sometimes the story has grown in the telling, and then I have expanded the ending to match it, but the point is that the ending must be what everything logically flows up to.
Thank you for explaining this.