There is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story.
— Frank Herbert
Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something else is about to begin. And there are many things that don't really end, anyway, they just begin again in a new way. Ends are not bad and many ends aren't really an ending; some things are never-ending.
— C. JoyBell C.
The end of THE END is the best place to begin THE END, because if you read THE END from the beginning of the beginning of THE END to the end of the end of THE END, you will arrive at the end.
― Lemony Snicket, The End
I’m almost halfway through the latest rounds of edits on Magickal Mayhem, which means the end is nigh. One day (sooner rather than later, I hope) I’ll be able to close the file and count it as done.
Meanwhile, I posted the final installment of my on-line serial, The Cave, on Friday. Did you read it? What did you think? Were you satisfied or disappointed? I’ll tell you honestly, it was always going to end that way. I figured out the ending about halfway through, I just wasn’t sure how I was going to get there.
Right now it’s sitting at about 15,000 words, which is a good size for a novelette. If I can write three more about the same length, I can release them as an anthology. But in the meantime, The Cave needs a lot of work. LOL
If the beginning of a story is meant to draw the reader in, then the ending needs to leave the reader satisfied with what happened to the characters. The easiest way to do this (for me at least) is to know how the story is going to end before you start, that way you can leave clues as you go along.
Flash fiction aside, I try not to start a story unless I know how it’s going to end. I don’t need to know all the stuff in between, you have to have some fun with the journey, but I need to have a destination in mind. I have written strong beginnings in the past, but they fizzled out pretty quickly when I had no idea where they were going.
With The Cave, I didn’t even realize it was going to be a lengthy story and I cannot tell you the number of convoluted ideas I had for finishing it. It wasn’t until I settled on the idea that it was a fight between good and evil (an age old theme), that things fell into place. I knew the murals would be key, but I was also constrained by what I’d already written. So it wasn’t until I was working on the ending that I figured out the importance of the spirals.
Knowing your ending ahead of time allows you to build tension throughout the story, letting you throw in a plot twist or two. This is something I can work on during the rewrites. Although I think Eve pushing Sara off of the cliff was a nice plot twist. :-)
You can try different endings to see which one works the best. You can leave room for interpretation. Eve could just as easily beaten Sara and placed the keystone first, although I think if I was going that way I would have made the evil spirit more of a presence like I did the guardians.
You can have a happy ending, a sad ending, an ending with a twist, or one that’s open to interpretation. But whatever else, the ending needs to make sense, and it should resolve the storyline, unless you’re deliberately going for a cliff hanger to entice readers to buy the next book.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
WORDAGE REPORT
It was a busy week last week, and mostly busy with things other than writing. It was a holiday Monday and I spent it getting my gardens in (it being too rainy on the weekend to do so). The rest of the week was filled with group meetings and extended visits and a very messed up Friday.
I skipped Monday’s post because I just didn’t have anything to say. The rest of the posts were up, and on time, but it was a near thing with the final installment of my serial story. And now I have to come up with an idea for next Friday
NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts –
1,329+208+1,493=3,030
Poetry – 470 (not including post)
Other words – 434 (to finish serial story)
Total words: 3,934
Three-minute words –
112+113+94+121+138+115+117= 810
Goals For Next Week:
Write something other than my three-minute words and blog posts. Decide what I’m going to do for Fiction Fridays now that the serial is done.
EDITING:
49 pages
The further into the edits I get, the more work I realize this book needs. And also, that I’ve been working on flash fiction too long. *sigh* In other words, I’m kind of rushing this round and once I’m done I still have a lot of work to do. But the good news is, every time I go through it, it gets easier.
Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the good work on Magickal Mayhem.
MARKETING MONDAY:
I didn’t forget and I did want to, I even know which pieces I’m going to start with. I just wasn’t able to squeeze out the time for it. Did I mention what a busy week it was?
Goal For Next Week:
Submit two flash stories and one poem.
TECHNO TUESDAY:
Tuesday was one of the two busiest days for me last week. Even had I the urge to do something technical, I just didn’t have the time. I did learn something though, I learned there’s only so many hours in a day you have to sleep sometime.
Goal For Next Week:
Do something else technical or educational (like access one of my tutorials).
POETRY WEDNESDAY:
I had a meeting of the CPW (Cobourg Poetry Workshop), and I thought it would be fun to finally do all of the prompts we’re given on a monthly basis. So that meant I wrote five poems. Plus someone shared a form back on Pi Day (March 14) and it was so much fun I did six of them.
Goal For Next Week:
Share a new poetry form and new poem.
CRAFTING:
I started a new cross stich for a needle book during a meeting of my stitchery guild. Considering the amount of time I’ve spent on it, I didn’t get very far. But that was about the only time I had to spend on crafts during the week. Unless you count hemming another pair of pants for my father-in-law.
Goal For Next Week:
Work on cross stitch. Finish sansevieria.
WHAT I’M READING:
You know I had a busy week when I didn’t even have time to read. I finished The Bookshop of Second Chances, by Jackie Fraser, and I’m on the last of four stories in an anthology called Night Shift.
No reading on the Paperwhite.
Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the good work with the variety of books I’m reading. Stop ignoring the Paperwhite.
GOAL REVIEW:
Missed my Monday post, but the others were up, and all on time. I wrote some extra poetry, which was kind of nice, and I had to add some extra words to finish up the serial story. I suppose I could have just saved them to do one more installment, but I really wanted it wrapped up with Part 20.
I did not get anything sent out for publication, nor did I do anything technical on Tuesday.
I just didn’t have time to spend on crafts last week, and with all the crafts I already have on the go, of course I started something new. And just to add to the fun, I received a felting book I don’t remember ordering. Hopefully, that will be the last of the craft supplies for awhile.
So . . . once again last week was kind of three steps forward, two steps back. But I’m still moving in the right direction and next week should be even better. *knock on wood*
Happy writing.
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