Finding the ending

The editors of The Writer magazine this fall put out an excellent slick-cover magazine called The Writer’s Guide to Fiction. It should be on display on book sellers’ shelves through the end of next month. And there were numerous helpful articles in the magazine and I may write about several in my blog later but one of them really struck me. It was on Page 69 and was called, How to get Closure on your endings.

The article was written by Sharon Oard Warner, an author of several books and the director of creative writing at the University of New Mexico. It offered “five tips on crafting a finish that will satisfy readers.” Among the reasons for writing the article was a pull quote that said, “Endings aren’t easy. They require patience, persistence and the willingness to look deeper into our material.”

The article was good. I enjoyed it and even got something out of it. But I must be daft or something. I don’t have problems crafting an ending. It surprised me that others apparently do. In fact, the ending generally comes to me easier than the beginning.

When reading Ms Warner’s article I was reminded of something I heard about George Lucas. Apparently, the first thing he had in mind when he wrote “Raiders of the Lost Arc” was a crate being moved inside a huge warehouse, which is how the film ends. That was all he had. No plot, no story, just that ending.

When it comes to fiction, I know in general terms how it is going to end very early on. I have found that knowing the ending helps me know I am heading in the right direction as I write. I generally don’t outline and just let the story unfold, just as long as it fits the ending.

Back sometime in September while I had a considerable amount left to finish “Fighting Chaos,” the exact ending came to me. I tend to be a linear writer and I fought the impulse to just jump to the end and write. It was a losing battle.

Being enthralled with my inventiveness, over a two-day period I wrote the last 20 pages of my novel. Then I went back and wrote the 75 to 80 pages that led up to it. Once completed, very little of what I wrote leading up to the ending ultimately changed anything in the ending.

Around that same time __ and before I finished “Chaos” __ I envisioned an ending to my next novel and wrote that too, although, like Lucas, I didn’t even know exactly what the story was about. (I only have a working title, which I will let you in on later.)

So, as Ms Warner suggested, avoid too-neat an ending, look to the beginning of the story for the ending and let the story speak for itself.

That is sound advice. Though I finished my novel before I read Ms Warner’s article, her basic advice was what I used to find closure. Only time __ and getting published __ will tell me if my haphazard method really works, even for me.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.