Conventional wisdom says a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. True enough, but not necessarily in that order. Stories often start in the middle, in medias res, to use the literary Latin phrase. Literally ‘in the middle of things’, in the middle of some action, to give a story immediate impact. Writers employing this approach may refer to the characters cataphoretically; that is by pronouns: he, she, etc. with the referents, their identities, being revealed later in the narrative. The chronological beginning of the story is filled in by employing flashbacks, to provide background and exposition. The use of flashbacks is a familiar cinematic technique in films which begin with lots of action and drama. Another cinematic technique is to begin the story at the end and then go to the beginning. The ending is then repeated at the end, giving the impression of coming full circle, which can be effective, but I’ve often felt it’s a spoiler, giving away the ending. Another recent trend in film is to make frequent changes of scenes, cutting up the chronological order into seemingly random sequences. The result may be a fragmented and confusing story, the result perhaps of the director or editor trying to be too clever.
A short story should have a strong beginning, which may be some high point of drama from the middle. Introductions, backgrounds and expositions make for weak beginnings. Often the first thing to go in editing a story is a superfluous beginning. Short stories are often improved by deleting the first paragraph or two. Flashbacks are a useful device but some of the aforementioned cinematic techniques do not work well in short stories. I prefer not to mess too much with chronology.
Beginnings and endings are important. The ‘beginning, middle, end’ model usually states that the end of the story provides a resolution, a dénouement, even ‘tidies up any loose ends’. This may be true of a full length novel but not necessarily a short story. Modern short stories more often have unresolved, inconclusive endings. I have read critiques of short stories that have commented on a “satisfyingly ambiguous ending.” This is particularly true of certain genres of stories.
The ’twist in the tale’ is a surprise ending popularised by writers like Roald Dahl. A variation of the ‘twist in the tale’ is an ending to which the reader responds with: That was a surprise but not entirely a surprise, as in retrospect, the clues were there in the story, and it might have been predictable. A good example of this is the short story The Lucky Bench by Lynette Mentink, a prize winner in the 2021 RNZ Nine to Noon short story competition. You can hear a recording of the story on the Radio New Zealand website.