Short stories I usually have a general idea of the ending. Longer stories though take a bit more thought as far as the ending.
I know my ending as it is a memoir of someone I was close to, deceased. This is a bit off topic, but this memoir will cover around 50 years, and the end is the climax of the whole story. In my first draft I started with the dramatic climax (death of the main subject) but I am rethinking it, in that it may be too much of a spoiler. I started at the end because the beginning was so ordinary and lacked anything to elicit interest from the reader. But I am thinking I can achieve the same effect by starting near the end, but not giving away the final conclusion. I would start where the main character is in a lot of trouble, but save the final resolution for the end of the book. Any thoughts on this, comrades?
I've more or less formed the entire major plotline before I even put fingers to keys. Whenever I get an idea - which usually starts with just a character and maybe a specific scene or set of dialogue - I can't stop thinking about it until I know everything about it. I'll see the most banal thing in the world, like a mop sitting at a funny angle, and suddenly I've got this scene in my head about that mop being left in that position because the young teenager was too bored to do a good job with the mopping and instead was messing around trying to build cleaning tool towers. Then I just have to sew that scene into the rest of the plotline. It does sometimes get annoying though when I'm trying to go to sleep and my brain just goes 'no, it's ideas time now - here have a really good one that if you don't write it down right now I'll make sure we never remember it again'. As for the subplots and the minor or supportive characters I make them up on the fly, except for when they have important foreshadowing, throw-back or symbolic value. That's the thing about writing though, it's a creation and it just wouldn't be fun for me if I knew everything.
I usually know the beginning, middle, and ending to my stories. Discovering everything between the points, that's part of the fun.
I can't start writing unless I have the backbone of my story already planned out. Beginning, middle, and end.
I plan fairly thoroughly, because I usually end up writing myself into corners, running around like a headless chicken with no real sense of purpose if I don't. Endings though, aww man, I just struggle with them so much more than any other part of the book. Beginnings come really easy to me and if I've got an idea of where I want the story to go (which I always do because I enjoy planning, for the middle bit anyway) then the middle isn't too daunting either. But wrapping everything up neatly at the end and providing more than just an 'it was sorted, the end' sort of ending is the part I struggle with most. My last novel that I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2012 I had the ending planned out and it sort of worked, though I wasn't entirely happy with it I just couldn't work out a better way to do it. The novel I've just started actually writing (it's been in the planning for a few months) I have a vague idea of what needs to happen at the ending, i.e. the bad guy needs to be defeated etc, but I don't really know anything about how it will happen. That worries me, because I'd like to be one of those folk that throws in all sorts of clues etc leading up to the end where you get the 'Aha!' moment, but without an ending thought out surely it's a lot harder to do that? I'm also worried about providing challenges that, at the end up, my heroes just can't possibly solve without some sort of deus ex thingy happening? How do you work around that? I'm afraid I'll get to the end and just be like 'Uh, rocks fall, the bad guys die, the end?' because I can't think of anything else >.< So, er, no. I never know my endings because endings are hard. And even when I try to know my endings I can't, because they're hard...
Gosh, that's a difficult one. I don't know. I nearly always vision the ending as soon as I conceive the story, and work on it a lot in my head so it's quite detailed. I even write down dialogue between characters as it comes to me. Then the trick is getting the characters to that point in the story. Of course I have some vague idea of setting, plot, and other peripheral characters too. Maybe you could try visioning an ending when you're much earlier in the process. Make yourself work hard at coming up with details. Not just 'rocks fall on his head and he dies' but actually envision this scene. What is he wearing? Where was he going when the rocks hit him? Did somebody throw the rocks? Was it just an Act of Deity or Chance? Did he do something himself to dislodge the rocks? Is somebody else with him when this happens? Do they try to save him? Are they applauding his death? Try to really envision this scene ...and then, once you've done that ...you can even write it down, or at least sketch in the details on paper (or computer.) Then you'll have a destiny, when you write the rest. For me, beginnings are hard. Not so much the beginnings of the story itself (I can easily go back to the primordial slime!) but where I start WRITING the story. My tendency is always to go for backstory, and that can become cumbersome. I'm also crap at thinking up opening hooks, btw! People always talk about openings to books being important ...and they are. However, endings are JUST as important. If people read your story and the ending doesn't satisfy them, they are unlikely to want to read anything else you write. So I'd give endings a lot of attention, especially if you find them difficult.
"The first chapter sells your book. The last chapter sells your next book." (Mickey Spillane) I agree on endings being really important, and worth thinking a little about before you get there, or after you've written it in case you're not a planner. I work somewhat like you, I vision the ending as soon as I get the idea for the story. I need to do that to make sure there IS an ending that makes the whole writing worthwhile (for me). If I want to write a hopeful story I don't want to realize when approaching the end that it can't possibly end on a happy note. Knowing the ending gives me a whole lot of ideas for the story as well. Plus the fact that knowing if there's gonna be a happy or an unhappy ending sort of helps me find the right mood in the writing all from the start.
Yeah, I've heard that quote too, although I didn't realise it came from Mickey Spillane! And you're right about setting the right mood by knowing the ending. I think that really works. At least for me. (And obviously for you.) But those PESKY beginnings...!!! I was just reading not long ago, one of those blurbs from agents, telling you what you should and shouldn't do to sell your book. She said that yes, beginnings are important, and will make an agent want to read further, if they're well done, hook in place, etc. However, a great beginning won't ultimately sell your book if the ending doesn't work. The agent may ask for the entire manuscript, based on the opener, but they won't agree to take it onto their books until they've read the whole thing. She said she's been given so many stories that start well, ones where people have obviously worked hard at the opening and got it spot-on ...and then the rest of the book just fizzles out. She said it seems, sometimes, that another person has written the beginning, because there is such a shift after the opening chapter or two. These books do get read, but they don't get accepted by the agent. So ...as I'm always banging on about ...story flow is very important. And the ending is part of the story flow. It's all got to work together, no one part more than another. Scary, but a challenge, too.
Tbh, I didnt hear about planing until about... oh, six months ago? I'm a horribly reclusive writer and only recently started joining writing sites and checking writers blcoks, learning terms like POV and protag etc. In the past I never planned my story (partly out of laziness) but I'm currently writing a Novela that I planed from A to Z. I keep the notebook of plans (numbered by scene) on my desk next to me as I write, and prefer to it constantly. It's been really helpful so far! I'm a total scatterbrain and the notes help me remember to add in a detail I otherwise would have missed. I think the most important thing to remember when you make your skeleton, or plan your ending or w/e is that its not set in stone. I already discovered that I've had to add two extra scene I didn't think of before, and I'm switched around a few scenes (in the plan, my MC found the necklace at the crime scene before going on the date. I realized later that she needs to find the necklace after, and I've switched it around now.) so yes, long answer short, I do know my ending- and its helped me tremendously!
Um I don't have an idea for my story ending! I have a possibility of ideas and not sure which would be best but I know which would be best for my character which would also leave my book open to a follow - on as there was more I wanted to add to my story but I feel it's simplistic but complex enough at same time for one book to cram in any more. I think the reader will only be happy with the situation my story tells in this story without more on top. So I guess unless my character commits suicide - bit of a let down of an ending- then I need to leave the ending open to a follow on story. See, I still haven't set an ending, though I know where I'm going with the rest, who knows the character might take over and the ending set itself.
I am currently doodling something where I already have the first and last chapters pretty much finished. They are bookends to the main story, although the last chapter does contain an ending which the last chapter of the main bit leaves hanging. The ending came to me after I had drafted out at least half and had a vague idea of the rest. Whether I'll ever fill in the gap is another matter.
I think there's real truth in the old saying that once you've created your characters, you have to sit back and let them surprise you... If you've actually created proper 3D characters, you can't map out the whole plot because who knows what they're going to do by the end of the book?
Some of us can. No problem at all. What you talk about is one way to approach storytelling and the writing process, not the ONLY one. And neither one of them is "The Right Way".
In my first novel, the two MC's fall in love and wind up together. The actual last page ending of the story changed about three times during the writing that led up to it's conclusion. I think the final scene only came to me during the last few days of writing, and I adore it. My current novel, I had planned the same sort of upbeat ending. However...the characters I've created, while both really wanting the same things in life, in reality can't give each other fully what they need. I'm only on chapter 3, but already I see them parting ways at the end. At first, this really bothered me, and I kind of felt like "what's the point?" if the hot romance fizzles. And then... My MC's story isn't over. This book is just the first in her pursuit of happiness! Holy sh*t, I just created a series without even trying.
Well done ddavid. I'm in the same position as you. I can visualise my ending and it includes a play on the heart,a subtle betrayal,a test,and a quest over who to save and what to do. Does my character make the right choices? What are the right choices? That's my ending, but the choices she will make is the exciting part as im not sure myself. I need to let her lead the way and make the decisions herself - to follow her heart. As you, I think I may have created a series here.
I have never really stuck to one procedure or another. Sometimes, I have an ending clearly in mind and I treat the journey to that end as somewhat of an mathematical problem to be "solved." I have written music this way, with a really well done ending already in place and my mission is to get from the opening to that ending. On the other hand, I have had some terrific (cue Bob Ross) "happy accidents" that have turned something bland into something exceptional. Usually these "accidents" happen when I'm just messing around with no structure at all. Again, both in music and in prose that I've written, some of my best moments are ones that happened by accident. When it comes to creating, I firmly believe there is no "procedure" to follow that will lead to success. There has to be some "feel" or "instinct" that assists a creator to his final product. That and lots of words in quotations....
I always have a beginning and an end in mind for a story. The getting there, however, is a whole other ball game. Sometimes in getting there my ending changes just a touch, but it's always fairly similar to my original plan.
This is me, exactly. I can't write a book till I have at last three scenes in my head. Three mini-movies, one right at the beginning, one at the midpoint, and one at the central story climax. Everything else comes as I write.
I love it when this happens. In one of my novels I solved a problem on the spot by introducing a new story element, figuring I'd fix it later if it didn't work. Later in the story when I didn't know how to get the main character from the emotional climax to the action climax, I realized that element solved that problem too. A few nights ago I sat up in bed and said out loud, "Oh my God." I finally figured why my sneaky subconscious gave me that element and what it really means and how it will lead to the end of the main villain in the final book. I could never have planned all that consciously. Never. I'm glad I trusted my instincts.
I have just completed the first novel of a series and while I have a fairly static idea of the end of the series, the end of the individual books isn't nearly as clear. I originally outlined the book as being 26 chapters but it grew to 48 chapters as I wrote it. Certain scenes took longer to write, other times the characters had an idea and I simply followed it to see where they were going adding another chapter or two. Originally I planned on the adventure lasting two months but it turned out that after six days, I found myself at 350 pages. Time to find an ending and prepare the next beginning.
My current project has a battle between my two MC's and several baddies at the end, culminating in (at least) one of the MC's crashing at the end of a brief car chase and then shooting the final baddie as he tries to kill her while trapped in the wreckage. As I pondered today mentally doing the choreography of who shoots whom and in what sequence, I struggled with what to do with my male MC. My original outline called for the two of them to survive the wreck, but for reasons of incompatibility, they would not wind up together. As I stressed my noggin trying to figure out how to put this guy in the truck before it wrecks, I realized I didn't have to put him there; I could simply kill him off just prior. The end result is the same: my female lead doesn't get to spend her life with him, and goes on to (hopefully) many subsequent adventures because she is still all alone. I'm not yet sure which direction I will go, but an ending should never be 'in stone' until you're to the point of writing it. I'm now faced with two possible ways to get to essentially the same ending; I can only wonder if there are more?
The ending is critical, and I always have a strong idea of what will happen at that point. Would make it difficult to foreshadow and build to a climax without and understanding of what I'm building to. Sometimes the ending is the reason I'm writing the book, sometimes it's not. But the main problem, as with life in general, is the sticky bit in the middle.
I some time plan out an idea entirely and sometime plan a primary idea without any specified ending. In such case of the stories the final destination is planed during the writing.
