My writing needs help

[Tork]

I am trying to write a book. And have already tried to write many other books. They all end the same. No ending. I have decided that this is because I spill the entire plot onto one page. How do I slow down?

[Shecky]

Outline. Do a skeleton of the story with a particular end in mind. Then flesh out from there.

[Blaze]

Shecky is so bright his parents call him Sunny!

That is a good start, and also, take your characters, and make them real...  write about them, how they look, how they move, all the things that make them who they are, and then you can work those things into the story...

Unless, and some people are, you are short story writer.

[Kris_W]

I think it is perfectly normal for you, the writer, to have problems with endings. Finding the ending is the most artificial part of writing. The writer knows -
The Happily Ever After married couple end up divorced,
The Science Nerd who gets the girl develops MS and dies by 50 after 10 years in a nursing home,
The Triumphant Warrior has cumulative neurologic deficits from being knocked out resulting in paranoia, anger management issues and family murder / suicide around age 45.
- But the reader never knows these things because you chose where to end the story.

You might try writing time lines and character arcs for each character. Often finding 'the right ending' is really just picking a spot in the story where the lives of various characters resonate with each other.

[Shecky]

Yup. That works for a lot of people, too.

One rule of thumb that works in a lot of problematic situations is this: when you're having a problem, turn the problem around. In this case, what that means is that if you're having problems with the ending, START with the ending and work BACK from there. Take the character(s) you've already created and visualize some great victory, loss or combination thereof. Then build a couple of intermediate endpoints: how did the character(s) GET there? Lather, rinse, repeat. In the end, smooth out all these connections with text.

Hell, that's how I did at least half of my grad-school papers.

[meg_evonne]

One rule of thumb that works in a lot of problematic situations is this: when you're having a problem, turn the problem around. In this case, what that means is that if you're having problems with the ending, START with the ending and work BACK from there. Take the character(s) you've already created and visualize some great victory, loss or combination thereof. Then build a couple of intermediate endpoints: how did the character(s) GET there? Lather, rinse, repeat. In the end, smooth out all these connections with text.

Hell, that's how I did at least half of my grad-school papers.

This always blows my mind, when I hear that people are able to write backwards.  Not that I haven't done that once in awhile, but I never know how I did it afterward.  My mind just can't get around that idea.  I use the fishbowl I guess.  Everything goes into it, ideas for the ending, interactions between characters, conflicting character traits, even blank holes for characters that aren't evolved yet, but you know they need to be there.  Stir, don't shake and out it comes...  :-) 

When I want to sound serious, I call it a collection of the cosmos and you throw frisbees into it--but basically it's a fishbowl.  If you end up with too short of a story, you don't have enough stuff mixing around in the creative goop of creation.  Toss in more spices.  And keep adding in spices until it burns the tongue.

[Blaze]

Even as a kid I could never find that brevity which is the soul of wit. 

[Kris_W]

This always blows my mind, when I hear that people are able to write backwards. 
*snip*

One of the ways I 'write backwards' is to -

First - Look at the character as a finished product - the hero, the ultimate whozitt.
Second - Then I look for the individual strengths the character has.
Third - One by one, write up how the character acquired each individual strength.
Fourth - Put in chronological order, fixing clearly impossible stuff.
Five - Fiddle around a bit more, to find the character's low and high points then amplifying them.
Six - Put the edited, finished manuscript in a bottom drawer for a year because by now I can't stand it.

You can skip that last step.

[Kali]

Six - Put the edited, finished manuscript in a bottom drawer for a year because by now I can't stand it.

You can skip that last step.

I have so many stories that are at this step...

[RobJN]

Even as a kid I could never find that brevity which is the soul of wit. 

You learn that in Journalism classes.

My lit teacher hated my papers because they were so short. Yet I'd made my points, supported them, and wrapped it all up in a nice, cuddly conclusion.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

One rule of thumb that works in a lot of problematic situations is this: when you're having a problem, turn the problem around. In this case, what that means is that if you're having problems with the ending, START with the ending and work BACK from there. Take the character(s) you've already created and visualize some great victory, loss or combination thereof. Then build a couple of intermediate endpoints: how did the character(s) GET there?

I tend to start with climax, rather than end.  (I have a tendency for what you could charitably call long denouements) but otherwise, much the same thought process.

Also, if you have the key scene, and you know what the characters in it need to do to make it work, that can be a way to get to what kind of people would do what that scene needs from them.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

My lit teacher hated my papers because they were so short. Yet I'd made my points, supported them, and wrapped it all up in a nice, cuddly conclusion.

Heh.

My PhD is 25,000 words long, which is about half the length of most of those from my department, and a good 20% of that is in the padding direction.

I was a bit worried about this, but when I wrote to the appropriate Graduate Studies office, I got the form letter which is mostly for muzzling the Joyce mafia in the English department, and as length guidelines go all it has is "let us know in advance if you're going over 250,000 words or binding it in two volumes."

[Shecky]

I tend to start with climax, rather than end.  (I have a tendency for what you could charitably call long denouements) but otherwise, much the same thought process.

Also, if you have the key scene, and you know what the characters in it need to do to make it work, that can be a way to get to what kind of people would do what that scene needs from them.

Sure. Work from what you want to happen (whether it's the ending, climax, crisis, etc.), then build TO that - figure out how to make that thing happen.

[RobJN]

Prince finds the princess, kisses her, she wakes up, they live happily ever after.

Doesn't make for much of a story, does it? So add some obstacles. Some side characters. Some back story.

The princess sleeps in a tall tower, guarded by a dragon, on an island in the middle of a lake of fire.

The prince is accompanied by his faithful squire, who has a weakness for ale and women. And there are a lot of taverns between the prince's castle and the lake of fire.

Why is the princess asleep? Who put her in the tower? How did they get the dragon to agree to guard that tower for all eternity?

It's great that you can lay out the whole plot in one go. Now just start adding layers between points A and B.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Prince finds the princess, kisses her, she wakes up, they live happily ever after.

Doesn't make for much of a story, does it? So add some obstacles. Some side characters. Some back story.

Whereas what I find myself thinking is; why does a kiss do that ? Why does the prince want that value of "happily ever after" in the first place ? What kind of idiot person reckons that someone you magically wake up with your kiss and otherwise don't know from a total stranger is going to be an ideal lifemate ?