08 Editing Your Beginnings, Middles, Ends

Editing Beginnings, Middles, and Ends by Genre: Hooks, Builds, Payoffs, and Twists

In this episode, Beth Barany explains how to revise novels by analyzing beginnings, middles, and ends at the book level, focusing on genre expectations because writers edit for readers.

Using Shawn Coyne’s “beginning hook, middle build, ending payoff” framework (Story Grid) and R.L. Stine’s idea of the “twist,” Beth outlines how romance centers on the meet-cute, complications, and a happily-ever-after or happily-for-now; mystery begins with discovering a crime, builds through clue-finding and red herrings, and ends with solving the case; and thriller starts when the hero realizes they’re being hunted, escalates the chase, and ends in confrontation.

Beth also defines time locks and red herrings and recommends creating satisfying surprises by first knowing genre conventions and then adding unexpected elements for stronger reader engagement and pass-along value.

00:00 Edit Three Act Shape
 00:41 Genre And Reader Promise
 02:09 Hook Build Payoff Twist
 04:08 Romance Key Beats
 06:48 Romance Characters and Elements
 07:32 Mystery Crime To Solution
 10:27 Mystery Characters and Elements
 10:59 Thriller The Hunt
 12:58 Time Locks And Red Herrings
 14:15 Crafting A Great Twist
 16:43 Wrap Up And Next Steps

c. 2026 Beth Barany

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Transcript

BETH BARANY 0:00

One of the most important things that we wanna think about as we are editing our novels is beginnings, middles, and ends. Now, I mean that, number one, on the most macro level, so the beginning of your book, the middle of your book, and the end of your book. We all need to know what those are. As we edit, we need to think about them carefully and decide, is it the right beginning? Is it the right middle? Is it the right end? We also need to think about our beginnings, middles, and ends for every scene. first of all, I'm gonna talk about it from a macro level today, and in another audio, we'll talk about it more on the scene level. So once you've read your manuscript and you are familiar, re-familiarized yourself with your story, think about your genre. What genre is your book? And even if it's a mix of multiple genres, that's good to know. you are gonna need to decide what is the primary genre, what is the secondary genre, tertiary genre, and so on. The reason is we write for ourselves, but we edit for our readers. So when we're making decisions during the editing and rewriting process and revision process, we are thinking now about our reader and the reader experience we want them to have. When we think about the reader experience, we really want, to think about it in context. Our books are not, produced in a vacuum. We ourselves are influenced by all the genres out there that we read and consume, watch, listen, and so are our readers. So we are making some guesses about what our readers are reading and watching and listening to, and we're mixing that with our preference, and we're finding the sweet spot. So let's talk about your story's beginnings, middles, and ends. Say you've picked your primary genre, and for the purposes of today, I'm just gonna use three different genres, as examples, and, I might throw in at least oh, one or two more. All right. I do wanna start with this quote that I really love. It's from R.L. Stine, who is an author, and he says it in the movie Goosebumps 2015, Every story can be broken down into three parts, the beginning, the middle, and the twist." So I love this because as you start studying story structure, you're gonna notice how every story has a twist, and that is what readers are waiting for. All right. So I love this idea of the beginning hook. We all wanna hook our readers at the beginning, and each genre does that differently. And then in the middle of our book, it's the middle build. we're building to something, and of course, that is also specific to genre. And then at the end, there's some kind of payoff, which is specific to genre as well. And the twist comes when we do something surprising with what the reader is expecting. And all that bundle of reader expectations is what we call genre, and genre is made up of tropes. I will go into tropes in a, in another audio, in another episode. So today I'm gonna talk about romance, I'm gonna talk about mystery, and I'm gonna talk about thriller, and then I'm gonna do some examples on genre mashups. So your assignment is to really pay attention to beginnings, middles, and ends out there that you love, and also notice, try and pinpoint what is your story's beginning, what is your story's middle, and what is your story's end as you have written it. And during the editing process, you can change it to, to something else, and think about what you would really like that to be. The idea of the beginning hook, the middle build, and the ending payoff all come from Shawn Coyne's book Story Grid Now, the real beginning of a romance, what are readers waiting for? They are waiting for the potential love partners to meet, and that is, in film, they call that the meet cute. We are waiting for that to happen. It's a delicious moment. We want to be surprised, excited, and delighted by that moment. What happens in the middle of romance? first of all, there's complications that keep the lovers apart. If there weren't any complications, there wouldn't be a story. So you need those complications. And then in the middle of romance typically is where the two lovers come together and profess their love, and it changes them irrevocably. It has to, otherwise again, you, what are you writing a story for? Th- then it's just an ordinary day. Stories are about extraordinary moments. after the middle, there's usually more complications that keep the lovers from just saying, you know, "I love you, I love you, the end." There's more complications. They have to prove to themself and the world that they have changed, and there's usually some kind of sliding back, or there's external plot complications. And then they come together at the end, usually represented by a wedding or some other way that the community recognizes them, whether they're all sitting around the table, uh, having a meal. So romances have to end with either a happily forever, happily ever after, you know, the sense of like, "Oh, we're committed. It's forever"; or a happily for now that they're both happy with Uh, so those beats, those parts of the story, and a beat is a moment in the story, that's how I'm using the word beat, have to be there for it to be defined as romance. Also, if you're writing a story that has romance in it, if you are angling your stories toward that romance market as part of your larger market, if you're writing science fiction or fantasy, then that romance needs to feel like it's in progression, even if you're spreading romance over a few books, like I've done. I still have the meet cute, I still have a middle, moment of coming together and where that shifts things irrevocably for the two people, and then the ending payoff actually in my four book science fiction science fiction mystery series doesn't happen until in the later books. but there is a sense of resolution even in the first book while romance is my secondary plot. But it gets resolved before the main plot, which is mystery, which I wanna come to next. But first, let's look at the kinds of characters we typically see in romance and the kinds of elements we see. In romance, your typical characters are, of course, the lovers, sometimes a mentor, a best friend, sometimes an ex or competitor. And the kinds of story elements or story conventions that readers expect to see in a romance include, and these are the tropes, first kiss, a declaration of love, a reason to stay apart, and the I love you moment. And then sometimes there's a little epilogue at the very end of the story. It's a little peek at the new normal for the lovers. Okay, mystery. If your story is a mystery set in a fantastical world, science fiction, or fantasy, like I've done, I realized that I wasn't writing an adventure story, I was writing a mystery, meaning I had to follow the genre expectations around mystery, and I really leaned into that. And then of course, I had to make other decisions around world building to really signal that I was in a science fiction world, and I will be talking about how to do that in another episode. So what are the three main parts of a mystery? The beginning hook, the middle build, the ending payoff. So in mystery, of course there's many kinds of mystery, but generally in the beginning we want there to be the discovery of a dead body or a theft. Now, for me, that happens within, I believe it happens, the theft happens in the first chapter, and then I also have a dead body because I'm writing murder mysteries, and that happens a little bit later. the beginning hook of any mystery usually is a crime of some kind that, often happens off the page. Unless you're writing thriller, in which case that's a whole other thing and I'm gonna get to that in a moment. So your beginning hook is a discovery of the theft or a discovery of a dead body. So that's the beginning hook, and that's what I do in each of my sci-fi mystery books, about my main character, Janey McCallister. So sometimes it's even a minor character who discovers, the crime and then brought to the attention of the authorities or your main character. In my case, I have a working investigator as my main character, but even if you have an amateur detective, somehow they discover really early on what has happened. They have discovered the crime. In the middle build, which is the big bulk of the story, your detective, your amateur or professional detective, is searching for clues, and that includes red herrings. That might include, interviewing witnesses. what's a clue, what's not a clue, that's a big part of the story, and the reader is along for the ride, and they get to be thinking about what's a clue, what's not a clue. And, avid readers of mystery know that there's procedure that professional detectives follow, and they're eagerly, following along. Ending payoff. At the end of a mystery, the mystery is solved by your detective, and there's often a confrontation with the villain, the uncovering of some kind of truth, and generally, the criminal is gonna face justice or, an injustice. Sometimes the criminal faces injustice, or sometimes there's an ironic ending, depending. Um, but more, most often in typical mysteries, there is, the, the criminal will be facing justice, and that often happens off the page. the typical kind of characters in a mystery, you're gonna need your investigator or detective, amateur or professional, you're gonna need your prime suspects, your innocent victims, often a sidekick, like a Watson type, and you're gonna need your villains, your criminals. some of the typical story elements in mystery include the collection of evidence, red herrings, reluctant witnesses, inscrutable evidence, inductive and deductive reasoning, hunches, and a deadline, some kind of time lock. Now, let's go to thriller. And this is the last one I'm gonna talk about as, a standalone genre. According to Shawn Coyne in his book The Story Grid, thriller is a fairly new genre, and it evolved as a combination between mystery and horror, which I find really interesting. So the beginning hook of a thriller is usually the hero discovering that they are being hunted. A great example of this is Bourne Identity. So thrillers are really about the hunt. The middle build includes the hero and maybe their companions being chased, still the hunt. And then the un- ending payoff of a thriller is often a confrontation between the hero and the villain, with the story ending in either justice, injustice, or irony. And irony is justice isn't served in the way the reader expects. And usually toward the end, the hero s- decides to stop running and confront those chasing them, and usually triumphs, quite often. So what are the kinds of characters we expect to see in thrillers? And these are tropes, and these are based on reader expectations that, of course, you can subvert. so, a hero who is a victim in much of the story, often, and then other innocent victims, and then the villain, could be one villain or many, the mentor, the buddy, helpful kind strangers, and sometimes a surprising ally. And typical story elements include the hero's sacrifices, red herrings, time locks are very important to thrillers, and then, this I learned from Shawn Coyne's book, a speech in praise of the villain. And you'll even find this in mystery as well or other genres that use elements of mystery and thriller, where either the villain or a lackey for the villain will give a speech in praise of the villain. It's a really wonderful moment. We've seen it exaggerated in films, m- many times. And just a word about what is a time lock. Time locks are great. If your story is lacking some tension, give the characters some kind of deadline they have to meet, or else. The or else is consequences. It needs to have real consequences to the characters. So a time lock is a shorthand way of saying that. Give them a deadline, make there be real consequences if they can't meet that deadline. And if your story is dragging, this may be one of the reasons why. So here's my definition from my book. Plan Your Novel Like a Pro and Have Fun Doing It, that I wrote with my husband, Ezra Barany. A time lock is a deadline that forces the main character's hand to act. For example, the bomb must be diffused in three minutes. The hero must race to catch a plane. The princess will turn into a wench at the stroke of midnight." And then let me define what a red herring is. Red herrings are great for, thrillers and mysteries, suspense, that kind of thing. A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue. It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences towards a false conclusion. A red herring might be intentionally used, such as in mystery fiction.

Speaker 14:16

One more thing. I wanna talk about the twist. A story twist is something unexpected, surprising. Readers typically are going to expect the beginning hook, the middle build, and the ending payoff with certain types of characters and certain story elements that will let them know, oh, yes, I am firmly in the mystery genre, or I'm firmly in romance, or I am firmly in romantic suspense, or I am firmly in fantasy that's a mystery also, a mystery set in a fantastical world of some kind. But it's our job as readers to make these elements feel unique, personal, and have something surprising about them So here's my recommendation. When you're searching for a way to make the beginning, middle, and end surprising, first know very clearly what is the expectation in your genre. Then add in something that your reader doesn't expect. and what form could that take? That could take the form of humor. That could take the form of opposites, so making characters and situations be opposite, and so there's more tension. Also, you can use something unusual or bizarre, far outside the norm. Or something embarrassing or shocking Interestingly, and this is a cultural phenomena, the twist is often the part that readers and moviegoers and listeners do not reveal to other people because we want other people to be surprised. It's delightful to be able to say to someone, "Oh, you have to read this book," or, "You have to go see this film," or, "You have to watch this show. It's really fun." And w- and we hold back what is the surprising aspect. Or we might just say, "Oh, that w- it was, there's some great twists in there. You'll see." And really good twists is one of the things that creates pass along value. It creates, the urge to say to other people, "Oh my God, you have to read this book," or, "You have to see this film." So the more interesting your twist, and also the more satisfying, the better your book will be passed along, 'cause people are like, "Oh my gosh, you have to see this." So an example would be, with a movie, would be The Sixth Sense. It had a fabulous twist, and then that created a lot of buzz. Or The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. And there's a lot of other books too that create this intense, "Oh my God, you have to read it," because of the twists. Okay, so today I talked about beginnings, middles, and ends, the beginning hook, the middle build, and the end payoff. Analyze those for your story. See if you can make them better by making them more surprising, engaging, interesting, and personal to your characters. It's not a cookie cutter thing. It's what readers expect. We wanna deliver it to them, and we wanna make it delicious, exciting, wonderful. All right, if you have any questions, be sure to bring them to the edit lab where we can go over your specifics by looking at your specific pages. That's it for this week, everyone. Write long and prosper.