Sailing towards The End

[pjthompson]

Booksquare has an interesting post on endings:

http://www.booksquare.com/archives/2005/12/05/1687/

Linking to a larger post on endings, and quoting thusly:

"Certainly, that’s my habit when writing a novel. Even if, in the event, the ending changes, I always like to have a draft of a last paragraph tucked away in the notebook somewhere by the time I’m halfway through. It is rather a comfort, and an idea of something to work towards, like a distant life raft in the uncharted ocean you’re swimming towards."

I do this, too, for some of the same reasons. I never start--well, hardly ever start--a novel unless I know where it's headed. But generally the end is a kind of mist on the horizon, parting occasionally to show a sail and rigging here, a bowsprit there. At some point, and halfway is about right, the ending crystallizes enough for me to write an ending paragraph. Sometimes it's only an ending sentence, sometimes it's several paragraphs at the end, but it becomes a real thing, a fully-seen ship sailing towards me out of the mist from that far off horizon. It's a thing of great comfort, a goal to be stretched towards, and it's amazing how often that exact sentence or paragraph(s) wind up fitting just right at the end of the book. I may fiddle the wording a bit, but as often as not this floating piece of driftwood becomes a snug harbor.

And yes, I suppose I would agree that a good ending is more important than a good beginning, because that is what the reader is left with, what makes them feel whether or not the voyage was worth it. But I also think that a truly awful ending, or one that simply fails to fire the imagination, is an albatross around the neck of your work. Because without it, no reader will even commence the journey.

Because of that, I sometimes think good openings are harder to write than good endings. I may be wrong and am willing to consider other opinions, of course. But good endings accumulate based on where your passion and your story are heading; they accrete around the vision and should feel like the culmination of the tide that's run before. Beginnings have to capture all that right up front, before the reader is acquainted with any of it. A good opening, it seems to be, is a siren echo of a good ending. Which means you probably don't have a hope of having a good opening until you've already written the ending.

Which is why rewrites are such wonderful second chances.

Comments

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

I rarely know the ending and I feel a bit odd if the ending comes to me. I might feel compelled to force things to go there when they shouldn't, or I'll feel bad if I have to abandon one for something else. In my WIR, I knew the ending once I got past the halfway point and kept it flexible enough in my mind to get there without too much trauma, but then, I knew it in only vague terms.

Basically, I write to find out how things end.

[pjthompson]

So do I, for the most part. Everything around that endpoint can change radically, and I never consciously think, "This is it, can't be changed," but I always end up there anyway. I'm going through that with my WIP--it took a longer than usual time for that ender to come to me, but once it did, it energized the process. And a lot of stuff leading up to it has altered. But it's still out there, like a lodestone pulling me home.

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

It is weird, sometimes. I once wrote a story and literally didn't know the ending til I got to the last scene and as I wrote it, I knew. It turned out to not be the last scene, after all. There had to be a brief epilogue.

One thing that's freaked me a bit about the WIR is that when I started the sequel, set 5 years later, the two people I thought would be married, were no longer living together, but were still involved. They just hadn't seen each other for many months and that took me aback. I had no idea where it came from. So where I thought I'd left them, part of the WIR's ending, wasn't really how it ended. So to speak.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

Well, I more or less know what sort of thing is going to happen because I'm constrained by history - come to think of it, no, I don't (I'm currently doing a lot of nerdy essays on my lj moving towards explaining that what I thought I knew isn't necessarily so). What I absolutely don't know is what is going to happen on the way!

[pjthompson]

It's kind of cool, actually, how the backbrain works on stuff when you're not even aware of it. Sometimes novels stall on me and I have to lay them aside for awhile until I can figure out what's wrong and how to solve it. The thing is, I'm not conscious of working on them because of gone on to something else, but one day I wake up and know I've got the solution and can pick the novel back up again.

[pjthompson]

One of the reasons heavy outlining doesn't work for me is that I want to find these things out as I go. That's the cool part for me.

[everyonesakitty.livejournal.com]

Good post, dude. I usually have a vision of some sort of big dramatic moment that I write to. It's not the ending, necessarily, but it's the big choice/moment of the book and I build to it. I never know what my characters will choose until they get there, though. And sometimes the choice itself changes dramatically as I go.

This is not an easy way to write, but it seems to be the only thing I can work. hehe. prolly 3/4 through the process I come up with what I think you're talking about, an actual sentence or moment that will end the book. Those are always really hard for me and I change them a bunch. *sigh*

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

*gloom* paper recycling bin full of earlier draft because I've just been finding things out as I go...

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it is cool. I had a lot of trouble with the WIR. I knew something was wrong, but it took 2 tries to fix it. The second time, I left it alone for many months and then, bam, all was clear, at least where the problem was (the protagonist needed a personality transplant). There's nothing more important, IMO, than the care and feeding of one's backbrain. :)

[pjthompson]

There's nothing more important, IMO, than the care and feeding of one's backbrain. :)

Abbalutely. I try to remember at all times that it's the one really in charge here. :-)

[pjthompson]

Well, yeah. I figure I'm keeping the big paper concerns in business single-handedly.

[pjthompson]

I usually have a vision of some sort of big dramatic moment that I write to. It's not the ending, necessarily, but it's the big choice/moment of the book and I build to it.

That's how it starts out for me, too. It's a general Isness that I'm aiming for and it crystallizes later.

I never know what my characters will choose until they get there, though. And sometimes the choice itself changes dramatically as I go.

I know what they'll choose, but I don't always know what all the choices will be. And sometimes those little stinkers change their minds or introduce a new set of problems that hadn't even occured to me. Brats!

Like you said, not easy, but I'm stuck with it.

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

I sometimes do the same thing. I may not know what the climax will be when I set out writing a story, but I'll know what I want the last phrase, the last image, to be.

And I totally agree that a good beginning is harder to write than a good ending.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

No, no, I assure you I'm doing my bit.

[pjthompson]

We wouldn't want them to go out of business, after all.

[pjthompson]

And I totally agree that a good beginning is harder to write than a good ending.

I'm always rewriting those. The endings never seem to get fiddled with as much.