Hello All, I am writing my first draft of my book. I haven't outlined or properly planned how the story will end. The story has developed really good, with few interesting characters. I have now completed 80% of the story in the first draft. I reached thus far while working full time. In my mind, I know the book has come to an end, but I can't figure out how it will end. I never worried about the ending , now I regret it big time. Currently I am on a break from my job, so I can spend 4+ hours in a day for writing. Such precious golden hours which I don't usually get with family demands. Now instead of writing, I am struggling as I don't know what happens next. Without knowing the ending, I couldn't finish the 1st draft. I feel bad for wasting the time, so I thought of going back and editing my early work, but I feel what if those early chapters affected by the ending, then the time spent on editing would be total waste. Seriously not knowing how the book ends, has totally threw me off my track. Kindly could you advise me on, what would you do when you don't know what happens next? And, how can I work towards the ending, when I don't have an ending in mind? Any tips here would help me, as I am so frustrated when I have the time in hand, but can't make any progress.
I guess wait for inspiration to strike? What's the plot? What's the conflict? What do the characters want/need? Whatever you've started poses those questions. The ending just needs to answer them. Easier said than done, I know.
Hm interesting dilemma. I've never had trouble with the endings as I usually have a few possibilities in mind before I even begin. There's always going to be a conflict, a journey, that is being built up to an ending. The part where I struggle most is in the middle. I tend to get to the climax a bit early and enter the endgame well before I intend to. What helps me in such cases is going back and editing. If you're hesitant to make changes before knowing the ending, then I'd say simply read it again. You can still do spelling and grammar editing while you're at it. I have to imagine you'll get a feel for where the story is going and come up with a satisfactory conclusion.
As a dedicated (well, not dedicated, just can't work any other way...) pantser, I would say that by 80% of the way through, I would generally have some idea of where it's all going. Perhaps you're not on the home straight yet? That's the trouble with pantsing, you don't know where you are until you get there. (it's also the joy!!) Also, also - I think it's harder to "march on through" as a pantser. Every writer's journey is different, but those who can envisage and then create have a certain advantage during the difficult times. Personally I have spent a very long time caring for an aged parent; I would have to confess that emptying the stool bucket has sapped a lot of my creativity and freedom of thought .
I wonder if this is writer's block more than a technique issue. The OP mentions work and family - and getting a break from a job, even if it is a long sabbatical, isn't a guarantee that the inspiration will come - it just helps Unless it's writing to a deadline, I'd suggest not to worry, and the next part of the story will most likely pop into the mind's-eye during some bus journey or walk to the shops Self-training is possible: I think everyone has their unique tricks but a common one is to "just write" and put some more words on the page every day, come what may, even if it is only 10w But having said that, I don't think self-training can cure writer's block - it's got to be done ahead of time Personally I wouldn't edit before finishing the 1st draft and leaving it to percolate - which is also common advice - people say e.g. 6 months More practically: rather than asking "what happens next" I'd suggest to approach the story as a development of a central theme, or the presentation of an argument - since that might be where the real ending is. By 80% (a wordcount might help make the advice tighter) - say 60,000 words - a central theme or argument has probably formed. The fictional events (e.g. pachinko gambling) are by now well-covering a skeleton of reader-relatable truths (e.g. frustration). Where a plotter (at least an inexperienced one) might go step-by-step to a climactic pachinko competition, maybe this feels hollow to the pantser - and maybe it's because the story is about the frustration not the gambling. How does frustration end? Perhaps the world moves on, and the MC realizes the thing they were frustrated with is secondary to one of the supporting characters - perhaps a croupier whom he hadn't noticed was falling in love with him. That's sometimes another avenue: to re-read the story so far from the characters' pov and think what else is going on in their life that the story has been leaving out. There is always something - narration is selective. One story I think did this well was Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (2000) - where (iirc) the main character just breaks off and wanders out of a 100s-of-pages-long narration, of the life stories of 3 generations of his family, to see his baby son being born. I won't spoil it but the way such a simple ending scene is presented suddenly turns the preceding biographies into a body-blow.
Thank you for all the replies and the advice. The book has crossed over 85k word count. I know we tend to do lots of word vomit in the first draft, but I want to give this figure to indicate how much I have invested in this story emotionally. I started this book during lockdown 2020, spent a year on it. Then when I couldn't figure out the ending, and after spending few weeks I picked up another project and its the same story there. I am really good in stacking the problems for the MC, and building the tension, but when I struggle to solve the problem, or finish it in a way that makes the reader go 'WOW', the motivation fades out, then I spend lots of time "thinking". As its been long time, and these 2 books are waiting for their ending, I decided that I have left too long for the inspiration to strike and gave myself a deadline, which is 30th of June. Since I set the deadline, I have been working on it daily, reading/researching (only on the first book where I hit over 85k word count), but still I am struggling to get that satisfying ending. Here are the things I am trying so far: 1. As the book is based on a struggling actress trying to make it big in movie industry, I read a lot of Celebrity gossip, actress' lives etc to see if there is something to light the bulb.. 2. I have chosen some pictures of the actors ,connected to my characters, laid them out like solving crime scene - to see if any interactions between them would sparkle a twist in the plot. 3. Currently I do have an ending(a happy one), that is so flat like things happen so easily without MC fighting for it at all. But what I hoped was for a brilliant payback planned by MC and the readers feel she earned the fame she got in the end. For this, I have written out what are the possible things she could do next, and the factors or subplots that I could use here, or long forgotten characters returning back etc. Somehow, none of them seem to help me in the ending. What's frustrating is, I have this nagging feeling that there is a brilliant plot twist somewhere in there, just that I am not seeing it. And it's been months and I am still not seeing it. I like the advices on reading back what I wrote before, getting the MC to talk to someone , trying out different endings, development of central theme etc.. @evild4ve Could you guide me on what do you mean by "Presentation of argument", if sharing a link for article or blogpost is easier, kindly could you provide it.. P.S:- after creating this thread, I have also raised similar question in different thread("Pantser" Problems) , sorry for this duplication. I am happy to have my posts moved here if that's the process followed here.
If you were at a party and had the room's attention would you tell a joke or a story without knowing the ending? My baseline for telling either. That being said, a good comedian can tell a joke based no more than on the punchline. They can work the audience based on their interests to craft a story that they identify with. You shared what you loosely based your story on, your tabloid reading, but this is not based on personal experience. Being a firm believer that there is nothing new under the sun. I would take what you have written and see who's life story resembles what you have written. Fact is often stranger than fiction and my guess is that your ending will boil down to research, not guessing what happens to someone else in a life you can only imagine. I personally have always been fascinated by those who achieve fame and fortune only to throw it away with drugs and alcohol. The before and after pictures tell a story I want to know.
I didn't have great evidence handy for that point, and lazily put it in anyway. Sorry. Things that happen in fiction are unreal. It's the characters that are real. One of the positive consequences of this is that we aren't limited to chains of cause-and-effect, or historic narration: or A then B then C. In fact, it's often better to depart from that at an opportune moment. By gradually training the reader, we can make them follow the stages of a rhetorical argument instead. It's a framing technique: and a close cousin of narrating emotion. Sing the anger of Achilles, not the fall of Troy. Some examples might be The Green Child by Herbert Read, or The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, or even Watership Down. (Sorry I use these as examples for everything when I'm stuck) The Green Child isn't really about a magical foundling who turns up in a village in Yorkshire, it's an attack on Communism in 3 chapters. (which I'll now misremember) It's along the lines that: (1) it comes in from outside ; (2) it makes us want to overthrow the fascists in an imaginary south american country ; (3) but really if we fall for it we'll end up chanting mindlessly in an underground cavern until we turn into a sort of undead fossil. The 3 chapters have only the most tenuous links to each other: except that at some point a lightbulb comes on in the reader's head. Lot 49 is (imo) to do with conspiracy theories and the fragility of truth. It starts from that old trope that the Illuminati have been hiding symbols in the backgrounds of banknotes and stamps. Its main character comes to be persuaded - via monotony, repetition, etc - that this is true. But it's done in a way that tempts the reader to buy in to it - by constantly hijacking the suspension-of-disbelief we use naturally to enter the story. So the ending of Lot 49 is odd: we're left waiting for the conspiracy to be unveiled. The story cuts off before the climax - and that's because it's a climax in the reader's self-awareness not the main character's made-up life. Or Watership Down is (arguably) a simple and familiar example: the story events don't come from what happened to the rabbits, so much as what happened to the Jews. (NB: Richard Adams always denied this, but I've never believed him) So at the end (perhaps) as well as feeling the presence of a rabbit god-in-disguise, we might remember another sort of creature - which disguises itself as gods. Unlike my first two examples, Watership Down does follow the A-B-C-D, but if it's only doing that we get a superfluous epilogue. (here's a typical critical apology for it: https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/watership-down/analysis/ending) If the story is instead analyzed as an argument to be cautious in light of history, then the epilogue concludes that argument with a call to eternal vigilance. (No time for evidence - but I'd pick out things like the emphasis on the silver-eared rabbit's youth, the young being filled with the old's spirits, and a guard being off-duty.) I should say: let's not derail the OP's thread disputing my controversial and inadequately-presented opinions on Watership Down. It's sufficient for the OP's question if stories anything like Watership Down are ever written anything like that.
Struggling with what comes next is part of writing. In fact, the hardest part of writing is often staring into middle distance while one struggles with a glitch or apparent dead end in a story. That's not wasting time- that's hard and necessary work. It took me months of drifting off into thought at odd moments while I tried to decide who actually killed the bad guy. I wrote scenarios in which almost every important character did the deed and rejected them all. When the answer finally appeared in a burst of light, I sat down and finished the book with nary another glitch. Those months of "wasting time" paid off when an agent offered me representation a couple of weeks ago.
I always find it helpful to go back and start editing what I've got so far to help me move forward. I'm a complete pantser. And, honestly, I never know how a story ends until I get there. So, it really is possible to work this way. I've done it many times over. I'm not sure why some people say not to go back and edit until the story is done. I guess it's out of fear they won't finish, but I finish stuff and going back to edit while I'm still writing has always helped me both in the short term and the long term. When I'm writing a novel. I will often start my writing sessions going over at least the previous chapter, editing it as I go, before starting the next chapter. I think waiting to edit your story until it's finished is always a mistake that can result in quite an overwhelming endeavor.
One thing that constantly bothers me about writing advice from people is they are obsessed with characters (what they think, what the conflict is, how will they overcome a problem etc.,.). Some may find this useful BUT I certainly do not. Try to forget about the narrative as a character driven story and think about what YOU want to feel, think and express in your writing. I have been working on something myself recently and found that writing a general theme in the margin helped me to focus on how the scene will progress. This could be something simple like The Calm Lake and The Ranging Volcano ... from there extrapolate the mood into the scene and explore further (let go!). Maybe you will create images of hot lava hitting the lake's water and you may view this as tumultuous or beautiful OR both! Note: I recently heard Richard Ayoade talking about how disappointed he was with the ending of Star Wars because it was a happy and perfect ending, whereas The Empire Strikes Back worked for him more as it left many open ended questions ... I guess in some form or another you will have to try and direct the narrative towards some admixture of these depending on the whole mood/theme of the story. In short, do NOT get hooked up too much on characters! The advice to focus on characters is given so free and easily nowadays that it seems to have forced everyone to lose all sight of pure self-expression and made them fearful of doing something that feels right for them.
Not sure if someone else has mentioned this already... I learned this from one of the Master Class writers (can't recall which one) but if you're stuck, then likely something has happened in the previous chapters that doesn't quite fit, making it difficult for you to move forward. So, the suggestion is that, instead of going back to edit and revise the whole thing, go back to a few scenes earlier and re-write it. Keep your current version and scenes as they may be useful later but in another version, take the story in a completely different direction and see where that leads. Hope this helps!
