The Fractalization of Fiction

Abyssal, a fractal desktop wallpaper by ShiftedReality.

(title credit to Gregory Frost, which is fair because he says he’s stealing this post for his upcoming class.)

So while I was teaching my short story workshop at Philadelphia Writers’ Conference this year, one of the attendees asked me why I broke scene descriptions into beginning, middle, and end.

He continued, “I’m used to thinking of stories in terms of beginning, middles, and ends,* but not scenes. So why are you?”

My answer:

Short s...