1. Noam

    Noam New Member

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    Trouble with resolutions and climaxes...

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by Noam, Nov 8, 2010.

    My issue isn't with coming up with story concepts in the first place. I have about a million and one ideas, and then some. My major problem is that I can't seem to come up with a solid conclusion or climax for any of them, just a conflict. Whenever I DO come up with a viable option for a climax, it seems like it lacks tension.
    Does anyone have tips or ideas as to writing exercises or something of that sort that can help me with my plotting problems?
     
  2. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

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    You have the same problems most writers have.

    Write. Write your stories. And I don't just mean summarize them while you're watching football or something. I mean devote all of your consciousness to your story and WRITE it, word after word after word. You'll find that the action of writing generates ideas, perhaps more of them than you can handle at first. This is good. You start off thinking you know what your story is about, and you find as you work HARD on it that you were wrong - you weren't thinking deeply enough.

    Trust yourself. Set sail without knowing your destination and your imagination will call into being a continent for you to explore.
     
  3. Northern Phil

    Northern Phil Active Member

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    Don't worry to much about an ending. In fact if you look at a lot of books the writer often ends the story in a flash without a "happy ever after" ending. That may be something you want to look into.
     
  4. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

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    I agree I have never predicted my endings - well just one but it wasn't integral to the story it was a couple of guys dancing in their underwear I just thought it was a fun image to end a dark difficult story lol

    I just look at it one day and think that is it. My first book now ends in the middle of the first draft with a cliff hanger. My second with the men dancing and the third I dunno yet lol
     
  5. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

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    But how do you know how to structure something that doesn't exist yet? My stories don't exist until they are written. Right now I have a character who has been a scary school secretary for three books peering over her glasses has just morphed 10,000 words into a story into a four thousand year old assasin. I didn't know that is what she was. I didn't know my main characters were going to have a love affair or that Alice in Wonderland was going to have a teenage romance with Merlin (didn't even realise those two would be in my story until they appeared). In fact one of my two main characters was probably going to be dead until I wrote my first paragraph.

    I personally could not plan an ending before at least my first draft was completed - with my first book I didn't know the story ended until I copied and pasted a coronation scene with an assasination attempt and realised it was perfect.
     
  6. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

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    I tend to wing whatever I do with writing and speeches (has in the past included field journals, leaflets, guide books, speeches for various things and press releases)- but I know my way of structuring an essay or speech is pretty unusual. I am not alone in doing it though. Because when I write/speak I constantly conclude and sum up I speak/write to the deadline or clock. Which means my word count/speech time is almost entirely spot on. I keep my eye on deadlines and word counts then finish.

    Fiction is relatively new to me but I do it in a similar fashion. Don't know if I plan to turn it into a career but I know people like reading it so am giving the whole trying to get it published thing a whirl.
     
  7. Trilby

    Trilby Contributor Contributor

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    If you have a million and one Ideas [brilliant] Just a conflict? conflict is even better. No conflict, No story, -end of.
    Ask the question -what if blah... ?or maybe blah...? then again could be blah...?
    Keep asking the question 'what if' and looking at alternative out comes.
     

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