We as writers must resonate with the stories we tell. They have to mean something to us or they won’t mean anything to a reader.
Lately, life has been a little hectic, and I’ve been unable to focus on my longer work. But I have been able to write and complete short stories in a variety of genres and lengths.
While my longer work is “resting” and going nowhere, there is an upside to this: I’ve had a chance to experiment with writing and delve more deeply into how my favorite authors construct their work.
I am a wordy writer. To counteract that problem, I set myself a wordcount goal and do my best to stay within it.
In microfiction, the author must build a world in fewer than 100 words, show mood and atmosphere, and give the reader a story with a complete arc.
This sharpens my skills in writing longer pieces because I must convey as much information as possible in as few words as I can. No matter the story’s length, my chosen words must be powerful and visual, showing the setting, combined with a strong theme, and conveying the intended atmosphere and mood.
My ideas usually fall out of my head in an outline form. This skeleton becomes the first draft. Other times, I write the story as it unfolds in my mind. Then, I make an outline and rewrite it so that it makes sense.
I’ve written several stories lately that have a “circular arc.” This kind of story takes us through an experience and returns us to where we began. For better or worse, we are changed by the events we have undergone.
Most of these pieces are essays on my real-life experiences and may someday end up in a published collection, but may just be put into a book for my grandchildren. They began as handwritten entries in my notebook. I put them into a Word Document and saved them in a file labeled Essays 2026.
My personal essays usually have a circular narrative arc and rarely run more than 500 words. The story begins at point A, takes the reader through an occurrence, and brings them back to where it started.
In this type of story, the characters return to where they began but are fundamentally changed by the story’s events.
- The Hobbit is a novel with a circular story arc. Many tales that follow the Hero’s Journey have a circular arc.
The infinity arc is similar to the circular arc but presents one story from two different viewpoints: a double-circular arc.
The story begins with Character One, takes them through an occurrence, and brings them back. At that point, the story shifts to Character Two and retells the events from their perspective, returning them to where they began. (Two circular story arcs joined by one event.) If we graphed it out, it would look something like an infinity sign, a figure-eight lying on its side: ∞
The story I’m using for today’s example is one I wrote about ten years ago. It features two protagonists, and I had intended to tell both stories in only 1,000 words. I was not entirely successful, but managed to keep it down to 1,025 words.
As I mentioned above, in the infinity or double-circular arc, two stories begin at the same place: the center of the infinity symbol. They experience the event simultaneously. Both characters are tested and changed by what they have lived through.
The characters in this story do not meet. In many stories with this kind of story arc, the two characters do meet and interact. Relationships across time are a popular romance trope.
But they don’t have to, and I think that makes a more interesting story.
In this tale, my characters briefly occupy the same patch of ground during a glitch in time. It ends where it began, but with two sets of characters having seemingly experienced two different events. Their perception of the meeting is colored by the knowledge and superstitions of their respective eras.
How is the story constructed?
- It opens in the center of the infinity sign. In this tale, the antagonist is the catalyst, the place and moment where two realities meet.
- The opening sentences establish the world, set the scene, and introduce the first protagonist.
- The following three paragraphs show the situation and establish the mood. They also introduce the antagonist.
- At this point, our first protagonist knows he must resolve the problem and protect his people, and he does so.
But the infinity arc presents us with a story from two viewpoints.
- Again, I had to set the scene and establish the mood and
characters. Here, we meet the second protagonist. He has the same needs as our first and must also resolve the problem.
Neither character would have understood the strange physics of what they experienced had Brian Cox been around to explain it.
- The final paragraphs of the first half contribute to the overall atmosphere and setting of the story’s second part.
- Each character’s understanding of what they saw and experienced is firmly grounded in the beliefs and lore of their era, and both do what they must to protect their people.
As a practice piece, the story had good bones. However, it’s not the right kind of story for submission to a magazine or contest, as it’s not commercially viable. In fact, much of what I write isn’t commercially viable, but I love writing it.
The act of writing something different, a little outside my comfort zone, forces me to be more imaginative in how I tell my stories. We should all have a little fun with writing. Give that double circular arc a shot and see what you come up with.
Credits and Attributions:
IMAGE: The Hero’s Journey, Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Heroesjourney.svg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Heroesjourney.svg&oldid=1013027507 (accessed June 14, 2026).
The inciting incident is followed by a series of plot points, places where complications are introduced into the narrative.
The opening setting for this story is a small town in an exceedingly rural part of Thurston County. One must travel at least ten miles in any direction to find another city. After sundown, you must drive on narrow, winding, pitch-black country roads. I, the protagonist in my story, suffer from severe night blindness, which meant we had to return home before sundown, putting a real crimp in our social life.
Major surgeries happened for the other two, and I was many miles away to the south, getting our house on the market. But our sons and daughters are entering middle age, and our older grandchildren are adults. Despite our worries, our granddaughters proved they were mature and more than capable of handling their lives.
The protagonists are settling into the new neighborhood. One of the niftiest things about their community is the Starbucks—and yes, I did say Starbucks. The owners of the 
I find that writing is easy here. Creativity comes in bursts, and I feel good about my writing. We have pared our possessions down to the point that they don’t possess us—something you don’t realize is a problem until you are faced with serious downsizing.
I will have to spend a day or two thinking about the story as a whole and writing an outline as a framework to guide the story. The plot points I originally planned to occur at each of the four quarters of the story will be met, but how?
The midpoint of the story arc is often where the protagonists lose their faith or have a crisis of conscience. Something terrible happens, and they must learn to live with it.
So, starting at the end, I look at my characters’ location when the story finishes. Then I ask myself what they were doing just before the final encounter.
assion for the dirty habit of writing every day. They are joining the ranks of the old pros, the people who “do NaNo” every year whether they expect to be published or not.
In my mind, novels are like Gothic Cathedrals–arcs of stone supporting other arches until you have a structure that can withstand the centuries. Each scene is a tiny arc that supports and strengthens the construct that is our plot.
For me, the first draft is always rough, more like a series of events and conversations than a novel. In the second draft, I stitch it all together and fill in the plot holes.
Plot points are driven by the characters who have critical knowledge. The fact that some characters are working with limited information creates tension.
Lesser dramas might only touch us on a peripheral level, yet they can affect our sense of security and challenge our values.
The camera zooms out and now we see the idyllic serenity of a clear sunny morning on Spirit Lake and Harry doing his morning chores.
We writers must make our words count. We must show our characters in their comfort zone in the moments leading up to the disaster. Not too much of a lead in, but just enough to show what will soon be lost.
Now we’re going to design the conflict by creating a skeleton, a series of guideposts to write to. I write fantasy, but every story is the same, no matter the set dressing: Protagonist A needs something desperately, and Antagonist B stands in their way.
Where does our soldier’s story begin? We open the story by introducing our characters, showing them in their everyday world, and then we kick into gear with the occurrence of the “inciting incident,” which is the first plot point. That might be their arrival at their first camp in the Ardennes region.
One thing that I do is make notes that help limit my tendency toward heavy-handed foreshadowing. I try to keep it brief, but what will be enough of a hint, and where should it go?
In some circles, 40,000 words is a novel, but in fantasy, it is less than half a book.
A detailed history of everyone’s background isn’t required. As a reader, all we need is a brief mention of historical information in conversation and delivered only when the protagonist needs to know it.
The first incident has a domino effect. More events occur, pushing the protagonist out of his comfortable life and into danger. Fear of death, fear of loss, fear of financial disaster, fear of losing a loved one—terror is subjective and deeply personal.
However, the reader has an edge—they will be offered clues from the antagonists’ side, which the characters don’t know. The antagonist’s actions will affect the plot in the future. Even if the antagonist isn’t an overt enemy at the outset, the readers’ knowledge creates a sense of unease, a subliminal worry that things will go wrong.
Life in the Realm of Fantasy 