Post by account_disabled on Dec 5, 2023 12:17:50 GMT 7
Writing the final word in a novel is perhaps the most difficult task in the entire writing process. I remember in past years the thousand questions I asked myself about how to end the story : I wanted a sensationalist ending, because I was convinced that this was how it had to be. Last week we talked about how to write the beginning of a fantasy story , so today I'm wondering how to write the ending. Starting from the ending to write the story? “I cannot help thinking that novel writers in general may, from time to time, profit from the teachings of the Chinese, who, though they build their houses on a slope, have sense enough to begin their books from the end." —Edgar Allan Poe, Marginalia LXXXI Writing the ending to a story so you can write the whole story.
It is not the first time this has been done and this quote by Poe has already appeared on the blog. In a way this method works with any novel, not necessarily with fantasy. I know many of you write the story Phone Number Data without knowing how it will end. I too happened to foresee an ending and then change it as I wrote. But generally speaking we need to have a lead. I already know how my PU will end and so will K. The end is already in my head and sketched out with some notes in the files. Maybe it will change, I don't know, but for me it was important to know where to go. And in PU I can't help but know where to go... 4 solutions for a fantastic ending But also 4 solutions for any story, perhaps.
I'm talking about them in ascending order of preference, at least for the first 3, the last one is the one I love the least, because it gives me the impression of being a trick to break the story into several stories. The epic ending Used and abused. The classic ending, the colossal one. I say that endings like this are tiring. Maybe it's because of my mania for realism. Let's look at reality: do you find that everything ends in a spectacular, epic way? And they all lived happily ever after. A fairytale ending for children, perhaps those of the past. I wonder how modern fairy tales end. An epic ending, in my opinion, is a cage: it forces the writer - and also the reader - to close the story, to confine it, indeed, within a conceptual and temporal boundary.
It is not the first time this has been done and this quote by Poe has already appeared on the blog. In a way this method works with any novel, not necessarily with fantasy. I know many of you write the story Phone Number Data without knowing how it will end. I too happened to foresee an ending and then change it as I wrote. But generally speaking we need to have a lead. I already know how my PU will end and so will K. The end is already in my head and sketched out with some notes in the files. Maybe it will change, I don't know, but for me it was important to know where to go. And in PU I can't help but know where to go... 4 solutions for a fantastic ending But also 4 solutions for any story, perhaps.
I'm talking about them in ascending order of preference, at least for the first 3, the last one is the one I love the least, because it gives me the impression of being a trick to break the story into several stories. The epic ending Used and abused. The classic ending, the colossal one. I say that endings like this are tiring. Maybe it's because of my mania for realism. Let's look at reality: do you find that everything ends in a spectacular, epic way? And they all lived happily ever after. A fairytale ending for children, perhaps those of the past. I wonder how modern fairy tales end. An epic ending, in my opinion, is a cage: it forces the writer - and also the reader - to close the story, to confine it, indeed, within a conceptual and temporal boundary.