How do you go about endings?

[le_kitty]

Anyone want to share how they finish up their stories?

I find endings hard as hell.

Do you start with the ending in mind? Or do you allow your characters to run away with you? What do you find satisfying in an ending?

 

[oggbashan]

I always know the ending BEFORE I know the start point.

But my characters sometimes don't agree and the originally designed ending becomes impossible/unlikely.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Anyone want to share how they finish up their stories?

I find endings hard as hell.

Do you start with the ending in mind? Or do you allow your characters to run away with you? What do you find satisfying in an ending?

I collect endings from real life. I keep my eyes open for irony, classic punchlines, and shit happens. I start with a firm ending in mind but change my mind if something better comes along. Newspapers are fulla great endings, let them look for you.

 

[TxRad]

I'm usually surprised when the ending gets there. My Muse may know it's coming up but she doesn't share everything with me.

Herding characters is far harder than herding cats.

I might be finished with the story but here on Lit you will always get asked for more it seems. I don't think I have over a half dozen stories that don't have a request for more.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

I have NO fucking idea what I'm doing.

 

[darrowhk]

As a general rule, you should know where your story is going. Even if you don't have an ending quite worked out, you should definitely know what kind of climax you're building up to. It's what gives a story direction, instead of just being a bunch of stuff that the author had happened. Having an ending in mind isn't just about making sure you have a good ending; it's about making sure that your ideas are in order and are robust enough to support and entire dramatic arc.

If your story has a proper conflict and/or character arcs, the things that resolve those (and thus end the story) should be built up slowly and evenly over the story. If you've done that, the ending often becomes obvious.

 

[MatthewVett]

I read a LOT of Arthur C Clarke as a kid. I had a 1000 page collection of his short stories that I just replaced my blood with, pretty much. Not surprisingly, he had a pretty big influence on me, and I ended up with a taste for his style of open endings. (If you want a quick example, this is an excellent short story: http://downlode.org/Etext/nine_billion_names_of_god.html)

Anyways, that shows up in my erotica. I like open endings. Some readers complain that I don't give a true ending, but what do they want? For me to continue until every character dies? I like leaving readers with an ending that encourages them to imagine what happens next.

 

[lovecraft68]

I always have the start and the end, its the getting to the end that's the journey. Once in a blue moon a different ending takes over, but for the most part the end is as I saw it before I began writing, give or take some exact dialogue, but the destination is the same

 

[NotWise]

We might be talking about two different things when we talk about endings. There's the resolution, which is how your plot resolves the conflict, then there's the actual wording to close out the text. I always have the resolution worked out before I start, but the actual wording at the end -- the last paragraph or maybe even the last sentence -- waits until I get there, and then it can take some time to figure out.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Endings are easy...

Either everyone dies or cums.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

I always have the start and the end, its the getting to the end that's the journey. Once in a blue moon a different ending takes over, but for the most part the end is as I saw it before I began writing, give or take some exact dialogue, but the destination is the same

Mostly, this. A beginning will occur to me, I'll put together a few characters and let them interact a little, but then I stop and decide where I want it all to end. And then, yes, it's just the problem of getting there.

But sometimes I just let the story go where it wants, and end it when something gets resolved. Since just about all of my writing is being driven by archtypes, I usually find a well-worn path to an ending appearing at some point.

 

[Carnevil9]

If I don't already have an ending in mind, I'm not yet ready to start writing the story. It's all about the arc: beginning, middle, and end.

 

[sr71plt]

Having an ending in mind is part of my process for deciding that I'm ready to start writing. It doesn't have to be the ending that's ultimately there, though. I like to end with a bit of a twist or an exclamation point, which often points to what's going to happen after the written story ends.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

I've occasionally played the game of posting chapters before I've written, or know, the ending. _Rent Comes Due_ is in this category; so was _The Captured Princess_.

I like the way having to hunt for an ending focuses the mind (but it's worth noting that a number of fans were unhappy with the ending I eventually found for Princess.) You're forced to go back and find foreshadowing in the previous chapters that was not intended to be foreshadowing, an to find second meanings for character actions or statements. It's intense.

 

[Saxon_Hart]

I usually start with the ending in mind and a set of characters. Rarely does the ending change during the course of the tale, but once in a while an idea makes you say "Ooh!"

 

[HeyAll]

Generally speaking, an erotic story is about the sex.

In the beginning, we meet the characters.

In the middle, there's the build-up.

In the end, there's the sex action.

That's generally how it goes.

 

[Hypoxia]

The question was asked before. My response: sometimes I start with an ending; sometimes I don't. Sometimes the ending exactly specifies the path to reach it. Sometimes I wander all over the place before reaching something like a conclusion. Often there's no conclusion -- there's a more-or-less cliffhanger, or an imagine-your-ending, or whatever. Sometimes sex is the start or the end or it's not there at all.

Which means, I don't follow a fixed formula. Whatever works.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Sometimes a story (or a chapter) will start with the ending in mind, and just gets itself there. Others will start with no clue as to how it will finish. Sometimes I'll start a paragraph with no idea of what will happen several sentences later (especially when my characters start writing themselves). Somehow, I usually stop at the right place. Or keep going until the right place shows up.

 

[sr71plt]

Generally speaking, an erotic story is about the sex.

In the beginning, we meet the characters.

In the middle, there's the build-up.

In the end, there's the sex action.

That's generally how it goes.

Not in mine, usually. I start with a sex scene, continue with sex scenes as the story unfolds (yes, I include a storyline and usually an unusual setting--what I'm writing now is in the Paris Ritz hotel during the Nazi occupation of Paris in WWII) and end either in a sex scene or one anticipated.

 

[le_kitty]

Herding characters is far harder than herding cats.

lol, yes, too often my characters run away with me and I let them drag me down the rabbit hole.

 

[le_kitty]

I've occasionally played the game of posting chapters before I've written, or know, the ending. _Rent Comes Due_ is in this category; so was _The Captured Princess_.

I like the way having to hunt for an ending focuses the mind (but it's worth noting that a number of fans were unhappy with the ending I eventually found for Princess.) You're forced to go back and find foreshadowing in the previous chapters that was not intended to be foreshadowing, an to find second meanings for character actions or statements. It's intense.

I can relate to this... I've been asked by my readers to finish my series for two years. It was already near it's conclusion but I didn't have the heart to continue. And coming back to it five years after I first began, is interesting, because I'm a different person and I worry my characters are not as consistent as they should be. In any case, as the writer, I feel like my ending was anti-climatic. I tied up loose ends and gave it a HEA but I'm not sure what I could have done better and I feel like it should have been better.

 

[Ewobbit]

Apparently, not well.

I inevitably get requests for another chapter when I thought I had wrapped everything up as neatly as possible with the exception of I left one or two characters alive.

 

[le_kitty]

Thanks for the replies everyone! You've given me some things to ruminate over.

Over the years I've read a few articles on writing, and I find that structure kills me. I might work with a brief outline that always gets ignored and thrown out the window. It's probably why I never have a concrete ending in mind. Though perhaps the result is that I let things get out of proportion and then I'm not sure how to bring it all back Harder because my ending was never pinned down to begin with.

 

[le_kitty]

I read a LOT of Arthur C Clarke as a kid. I had a 1000 page collection of his short stories that I just replaced my blood with, pretty much. Not surprisingly, he had a pretty big influence on me, and I ended up with a taste for his style of open endings. (If you want a quick example, this is an excellent short story: http://downlode.org/Etext/nine_billion_names_of_god.html)

Anyways, that shows up in my erotica. I like open endings. Some readers complain that I don't give a true ending, but what do they want? For me to continue until every character dies? I like leaving readers with an ending that encourages them to imagine what happens next.

Hey Matthew, I just read the story, thanks for sharing. I'm not a fan of open endings precisely for why you like them lol, but I think they work well for short stories.

 

[le_kitty]

Sometimes I'll start a paragraph with no idea of what will happen several sentences later (especially when my characters start writing themselves).

This is actually, EXACTLY how I start. I've no clue where I'm going except that it's somewhere fun. Outlining always comes after the fact. Endings have never been pinned down for me, but my characters are always fully formed before I've even begun. Whether I know them well enough is another thing, but that makes writing them, or as you say, when they write themselves, all the more exciting.