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Monday, December 9, 2013

Endings

I've been thinking a lot about endings lately. It's December. I have finals this week (on Thursday--wish me luck!). And I'm yet again coming up on the end of my novel.

I know what I want, but at the moment it feels kind of abrupt. I'm working on it. What does an ending need? What makes for a good ending?

Have I tied up all the loose ends?

I pretty much knew how the novel would end when I started it. Someone tried to kill the king. We should learn the identity of the perpetrator. The villain should try one more time. And perhaps succeed...

The whole story leads to the end. All sorts of details should now make sense.

It's scary.

I feel like...

I don't know if I've done my job. I guess that's what beta readers are for. (Note to self: get beta readers.)

Anything coming to an end for you? Do you have your story's ending in mind when you begin it?  

3 comments:

Charity Bradford said...

I wish I was closer to "the end". Every day I try and move toward it, but the holiday season is so distracting. Part of me thinks I should just put it all aside and wait until January, but there is always a reason to wait. If I don't make myself write every day I'm never going to reach the end.

This go around I knew what the end of the story would be. My biggest concern is the fact this is a novel to connect book one and book three. What if people get frustrated with waiting for certain things to be revealed? Am I waiting to long? Dropping enough clues? Answering enough questions that they reader doesn't give up on me?

I could go on and on. Good luck to us both!

Huntress said...

A lot of questions with no ready answers. Oh boy, LOL.

Luck to you in big bunches for finals. But I'm sure luck has nothing to do with it.

It might seem like an ending but that is only the beginning of new adventures.

Or to quote a famous book:
There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time.

J.L. Campbell said...

Do well on your finals.

End make me evasive. I'll wait ages before completing my stories. I guess by the time I come back to them, I'll have a fresh view of the story, which helps me write the best ending. Also, I think I try to avoid saying goodbye to these characters.