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As an amateur writer, how do you figure out your endings? (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Like many, I find I can come up with cool setting ideas and various characters, but one thing I struggle with is figuring out how to wrap everything up.

What's your process of nicely crafting the middle of your narrative and flowing it naturally into a satisfying ending?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Disclaimer: I'm not a very structured writer, I'm a pantser if we use Nanowrimo terms

I have only finished short stories but for those I tend to start thinking about the end before I start writing. I get the general idea of where I want to end up and start writing with that end goal in mind. While writing if I come up with a different idea I will change how the ending happens, but I like trying to put the puzzle pieces together to make a satisfying story with some subtle foreshadowing that I hope the reader would like.

I don't believe there is a right way to do it, and if you write it one way in the first draft, you don't have to keep it the same during subsequent drafts which is nice. Sometimes it's good to get something down and then ponder on it and see if there was a better way to wrap it up.

Hope this helps and good luck writing!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Would you mind giving some examples of some cases where you thought of an ending and worked backwards to reach that conclusion? I'm quite interested.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Will do, I need to search for a good example. For a while I had been writing a serialized story and most of those "chapters" were written with that method. It may take me a bit but I'll pull something together (if I can log onto Beehaw on a browser it will go quicker, on mobile now)

Edit: So reading back with what I did, it is kind of a small outline for the chapter vs a full on nothing but the ending. My main goal in this was to make the last word of the chapter be the chapter title. Not sure if this is the best example and it varies from what I initially said due to my poor memory of it, but I do tend to take into account how it will potentially end well before I start writing. Hope this helps!