I THINK THIS IS WHERE WE CAME IN

by John M. Floyd

A few months ago I did a column on “outlining” stories, and the fact that some writers like to do it and some don’t. I also admitted that I’m one of those who do outline short stories, or at least map them out in their heads — including the endings — before the writing starts.

Well, something occurred to me the other day, something that made me wonder if one of the many strange things I did as a teenager might have led to my preference for plotting a story out before getting down to business.

Here’s the deal. When I was in high school I saw a lot of movies. And not on TV, either — there weren’t that many movies on TV in the early- to mid-sixties. I went instead to the Strand Theatre, just off the town square in Kosciusko, Mississippi, and believe me, I was a regular customer.

The funny thing is, I wasn’t all that particular about whether I arrived at the movie at the start of the feature or somewhere in the middle. I suppose it had something to do with the fact that I was usually bumming a ride with someone else, and maybe that I seldom arrived anywhere on time anyway, but whatever the reason, my goofy friends and I often sneaked in after the film was well under way. We’d sit there and watch the second half or so, then sit there while the end credits rolled and the old crowd left, and then keep sitting there while the new crowd filed in and the same movie started up again. Then we’d stay through the first half (or the first two-thirds, or whatever we hadn’t yet seen) and leave when we got to the part that was playing when we came in. Or, if we had enough time, just sit through it again all the way to end, thereby seeing the second part twice.

Sounds crazy, right? It was. I wouldn’t dream of doing something like that now, even if it were possible. I don’t like to be even a few minutes late for a movie — that would be like reading a novel and starting with Chapter 2. But, back then? It didn’t bother us a bit. Not much did.

I especially remember wondering what I had missed, as we waited in a silent and otherwise empty theatre between showings. Wondering what had happened in the story earlier to lead up to the ending I’d already seen. And when the film started again, and I watched the plot thicken, I could almost sense the way the writer (or screenwriter, I suppose) must have felt as he developed the story and dropped the clues and missing pieces into place and made the suspense build steadily toward the end.

Now, forty-plus years later, I still sometimes find myself doing that same backward thinking, before and during the process of writing a short story. I occasionally come up with the ending first, and then backtrack to lay the plotting “groundwork” that will eventually lead to it. I once heard that every single thing in a short story must propel the story toward its ending. I believe that. And I can’t think of a better way to make sure that happens than to know the ending ahead of time.

I heard someplace that Margaret Mitchell wrote the last chapter of Gone With the Wind first, and didn’t write the opening chapter until ten years later, when the book was accepted for publication. Frankly, you probably don’t give a damn, but I thought I’d mention it.

Once again, as I said in the earlier column on outlining, I’m not encouraging other aspiring writers to think or write in that bassackwards way. I’m just saying that’s what sometimes works for me, in my stories. And I have a real suspicion that it might have all started when our dumb little high-school movie group was always wandering in after Bogie or John Wayne or Paul Newman (or Clark Gable) was already halfway through his adventure.

I only wish I could say that that was the dumbest thing I did as a teenager. If I could convince you of that, I would be a good fiction writer . . .