In the end...

[bex]

Have any of you given thought as to how you would choose to end your stories? This is the first story I've written that has a definite ending (I've always done open-ended serials before this) and it's absolutely killing me. Just wondering if anyone else feels this way and how you handle giving up on the characters and story when it's time to end the book.

[celebkiriedhel]

I actually have the end plotted almost at the same time as the beginning.

I learnt about myself a while ago, that I find it easier to plot a course through the story if I know where I'm going to end up.

Sometimes it's just a final scene out of context, and sometimes it's a clear plotting point.

So e.g. With the story I'm writing now, I had originally plotted that the story would end when Grace was found by her parents. I very quickly realised that was the middle not the end, and so now the book is going to end with the birth of Grace's baby.

I tend to get lost if I don't have a point to aim to. Also I don't write chronologically - I write as each scene comes to mind, so having some idea of where things are going, helps me to work out where the scene will go chronologically.

I still have major problems with plotting, but ending the story is something that has helped.

I know that doesn't really help you. I think we have different ways of looking at our characters. I don't really 'give up' on my characters just because their story has ended.

e.g. Amelia's story (Last Sunrise) has far more to it than that short story plots, or even her appearance in Petr's story. I think she lives on in me regardless of whether it's written or not.

[bunnylita]

I've never written a story with an ending in mind. I know where I want to start and where I want the story to go up to a point, but the ending has always been a mystery.

Having said that, I've only purposely ended one thing I wrote. And I ended it because it just felt right. It felt like those characters' stories were over. It's been a few years since then I don't regret it.

Right now I'm contemplating ending something I've been writing for five years now. I can't really tell if I'm just exhausted or if it really is right to end it now. I guess I'll have to mull over it some more.

[laura]

Almost every time I see a story born in my head, it's about the 75% point I see first - that huge, ultimate climax point. I usually know what the ending will feel like, but I don't know specifically what it is. So part of my process in first-drafting is seeing all the other parts of the story, how they got to that 75% point, where they started, and eventually the ending will pop out at me.

I never write anything truly open-ended though. Even though LH in its entirety is open-ended, the stories that it's made up of are all concrete and finite. If I ever ended LH, it would be because all those finite stories had come to their natural ends and none of the characters had anything left to say.

[dinuriel]

In general--especially with my offline stuff--I write with a very "connect the dots" sort of approach. I know the beginning, I know the key points in the middle, and I know what can be loosely termed the "ending".

But really... I don't think there's ever truly an ending? I mean, the story comes to a close, but the reader can assume that the characters and their universe continue on; it seems to me that the only way there can be a real "ending" is if you play the solar flare card

That's just my two cents, though? Probably not that helpful. Sorry

[choco]

Probably because I just started my blog a few months ago, I haven't thought about a concrete ending. I do want to end it at some point. Perhaps it will be a long, drawn out story or maybe it'll just be an experiment in publishing and trying out the storytelling route. Some characters' stories I have in mind do have an ending, it's just getting there that might be the issue.