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McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: Tasmin21 on May 16, 2007, 10:58:54 AM
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I heard it commented lately that the last 20% of a book is harder to write than the first 80%. Now, as I sit here struggling with almost exactly the last 20% of my own project, I was wondering how everyone else found it.
Is it easier toward the end, when you're on the down hill rush? Or do you find yourselves like me, grinding out the last few chapters in order to rush on toward the first Big Revision?
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I heard it commented lately that the last 20% of a book is harder to write than the first 80%. Now, as I sit here struggling with almost exactly the last 20% of my own project, I was wondering how everyone else found it.
Is it easier toward the end, when you're on the down hill rush? Or do you find yourselves like me, grinding out the last few chapters in order to rush on toward the first Big Revision?
For me it varies a lot from book to book.
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Nope. I generally write endings first.
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I'm also dealing with the last 20%. It sucks because I'm so close and I feel like I"ve hit a wall. It's like some sick torture dished out by the cosmos.
But I think most of my delay has been because I just moved a couple of weekends ago and packing and dealing with all the other stuff has thrown off my schedule. I plan to return to normal now that I've got mostly settled in, so we'll see what happens.
BLG
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I actually found the last bit the easiest. But then, I had outlined, so I knew the way I was going to end from the beginning. I think a lot of writers don't outline first. For me, it's a necessity (novel-wise).
Matt
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Aren't endings fun? I also outline so I have a pretty good idea where I am going, although characters have a way of re-routing the outcome sometimes.
Once in awhile I find endings difficult because the story line or the character isn't ready to say goodbye or maybe I'm not ready to say goodbye to them. Life is a journey and so are your writings.
What I do know is that if you get stuck in an ending, it's a lot harder to get through. By that point in the book it is really hard to just force yourself to write through a writers block with a bunch of gobblygoop that you know you'll cut later--mainly because you are supposed to be tying up the story archs of the novel. God, the number of times I've forced myself to write ten pages and then suddenly the most wonderful single paragraph shows up. 90% of the time I cut the forced part and find the paragraph covers that whole section!
Maybe if you try to make a list of everything you want to cover in the last pages it will focus you towards the goal, but if the character or story are telling you that you aren't done--you might still have a way to go to get there! Your gut will tell you!
If it's you not wanting to let it go, better pop a beer and face it head on and cry your way through it. It's like a mother eagle pushing the baby out of the nest. It's hard to do and they may crash--but it's gotta be done. Luckily with writing, unlike baby eagles, you can pick it up later and have a mulligan or a do-over.
Best wishes as you finish your pages.
PS. One really wierd time I realized a few years later on re-reading, that the story had ended about two chapters before I did. Now that was a waste of time but while in the moment I stubbornly kept going and just couldn't see it! That's where having a friend read it with an outside perspective helps...
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With my very limited experience, it's the opposite. I have the hardest time with the first 20% of the story then I hit my stride. Of course when I finally finish a draft I usually end up cutting the 20% and rewriting the entire beginning.
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where to start and where to end are always the hardest for me
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Start at the beginning. End at the end. Anything else is just silly.
Matt
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Start at the beginning. End at the end. Anything else is just silly.
May I recommend Iain M. Banks' Use of Weapons ?
It has two narrative threads. One starts at the beginning. The other starts at the end. They converge towards the key event in the middle. There is no way it should work a tenth as well as it actually does.
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I'm about to finish up one right now, not a novel so much as a short story turned novella. It might technically reach "novel length" by the time it's done, but just barely.
In my case, this particular story is the back story of a character that I've been writing about and developing for a long time now, over many stories. He's a recurring main character that I'm quote fond of, so I'm having a really hard time finishing up this story in particular because it's been such an interesting and revealing examination of his life. It's very satisfying, but there's also a part of me that will be very sad when it ends. It's been quite a ride.
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I always know the end of my story before I start writing it. The process I follow is to start putting ideas together to the point I have enough to write the outline. Then I write the outline (mainly to keep things in the right order) and write it out to the end. I don't start the actual writing until I know where I'm starting, the main events along the way, and the way I'm going to end.
Is that odd for most writers? Do most of you just start with an idea and go from there? Or is it more organzied?
Matt
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Often, I start with a character, then I figure out what story they want told.
With my current monkey-on-my-back, I decided I wouldn't write it in order, I'd simply write the scenes as they came to me and put them together like a puzzle later. Now, as I try to fill in the last gaps, I find myself struggling. So, it's not really the end of the story that's got me thrown, it's the end of the process.
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Is that odd for most writers? Do most of you just start with an idea and go from there? Or is it more organzied?
Steven Brust has said in public that he starts writing and sees what happens, with no more planning than that, and it certainly seems to work for him. Tim Powers outlines to the extent of knowing everything that's said in every conversation before writing the actual text. Among reasonably successful published fiction writers of my acquaintance, I know one who never outlines because doing an outline counts as the story being Told and then not tellable again; one who regularly does an outline, finds the characters take things in a different direction within a couple of chapters, and hopes one day to actually tell the story she's been outlining for ages; and one who writes scenes in entirely random order.
There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays
And every single one of them is right.
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I finished my latest story today... the first one I've actually finished in a long time. I've been wandering around feeling a bit lost today.
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I finished my latest story today... the first one I've actually finished in a long time. I've been wandering around feeling a bit lost today.
Heh. I don't have a problem with that here. I always have at least 4 going. More often, 6 to 10. :D
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ref. your first posting. How the heck do you write an ending first? Is this unsual or does my mind only work from beginning to end? I'm not a normal type thinker but writing the ending first, puts me upside down. Unless you just love teasing apart puzzles? :D
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ref. your first posting. How the heck do you write an ending first? Is this unsual or does my mind only work from beginning to end? I'm not a normal type thinker but writing the ending first, puts me upside down. Unless you just love teasing apart puzzles? :D
I literally write the ending first. Sit down and knock out so many words of epic or intimate confrontation between people having no idea how they got there or WHY they are doing what they are doing. It's generally a full scene.
I make up characters in my head all the time. I'll see a pretty girl or a shady looking guy while shopping and the old brain will start spinning webs about them. They aquire names. Pasts. Odd habits. Some fade away. Some start scheming. Eventually, they make their fate known to me. It makes sense to me. You don't start on a journey without a destination in mind. Once the destination is chosen, the process becomes one of investing that fate with all the power my imagination can muster.
For example:
For the past two years I have been slowly writing an epic fantasy novella called The Woman Who Hitchiked With Cats. The genesis of the story was myself waking up from a sound sleep with the final scene in my head. A very old woman in fur and leather in a bizarre saloon says: "My name is Charity. And, here on the Borderland, Charity is a stone cold bitch." She rises up, kicks over the table, pulls a massive gun and begins executing every sumbitch in the place.
I also knew the following, on some deep and secret level:
She wore the skull of a cat as a talisman, and the skull had eyesockets as black as space.
Her name was not Charity. That was an alias. And, in her journey to this grubby saloon on the edge of reality, she'd also worn the names Faith and Hope.
I just have to get her there. And there lies the pain, the agony, and the utter primal joy of writing for me. :)
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I literally write the ending first. Sit down and knock out so many words of epic or intimate confrontation between people having no idea how they got there or WHY they are doing what they are doing. It's generally a full scene.
I do that, too. Write the ending first without any idea how the characters got there, I mean. Well, usually, I already have a start. The challenge becomes connecting the two. :D
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I do that, too. Write the ending first without any idea how the characters got there, I mean. Well, usually, I already have a start. The challenge becomes connecting the two. :D
Once I have my ending I can then proceed to craft an intriguing and evocative beginning. I am primarily a writer of short fiction which is, IMO, as much about structure and theme as character and narrative. I feel that beginnings and endings should be deeply linked and feel inevitable.
Then comes the middle, and the middle is the hard part! :D
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The last story I did, which is the first one I've actually finished in forever, I started with writing down just a couple of simple lines of how I wanted it to end, then did the same for the beginning, and then a one or two sentence synopsis of each chapter along the way that would lead me from one end to the other. It worked quite well.
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I finished my latest story today... the first one I've actually finished in a long time. I've been wandering around feeling a bit lost today.
I have pretty much finished my first book, a fantasy. Now I'm shopping it to agents (a task in itself). But I've also started the next book I want to write, a ghost story. It's very exciting. I've got it outlined and have already started principle writing. I've been putting ideas together for months. It took about three separate ideas to come to mind at different times, then to merge to become my book. A lot of the inspiration actually came from one idea that I wrote into a short story. I liked a lot of the elements so much I'm blending them into the novel.
So, best thing? Try to get writing again. Easier said than done, I know.
Matt
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I have pretty much finished my first book, a fantasy. Now I'm shopping it to agents (a task in itself). But I've also started the next book I want to write, a ghost story. It's very exciting. I've got it outlined and have already started principle writing. I've been putting ideas together for months. It took about three separate ideas to come to mind at different times, then to merge to become my book. A lot of the inspiration actually came from one idea that I wrote into a short story. I liked a lot of the elements so much I'm blending them into the novel.
So, best thing? Try to get writing again. Easier said than done, I know.
Matt
I'm agent shopping also. Fun isn't it? I'm almost 50k words into my next work. The writing is fun...the selling...not so much.
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So, best thing? Try to get writing again. Easier said than done, I know.
I have. I've been outlining a new one and drafted the first couple of chapters.
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ref. your first posting. How the heck do you write an ending first? Is this unsual or does my mind only work from beginning to end? I'm not a normal type thinker but writing the ending first, puts me upside down. Unless you just love teasing apart puzzles? :D
Meg --
I wanted to say 'Thanks!' for asking this question. In answering, you got me re-into the story I talked about. It had been a while since I worked on it. I needed a break from the grind of 2nd Drafting my novel, and I'm burning up the keyboard, making excellent progress. I may actually finish it this month, after two years of writing. :D
Muchas gracias!
-G.
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Jack, so pleased to be of help. I've thought often of your Faith, Hope and Charity. Enjoy the ride! She sounds like a heck of a character. By the way, I'm writing an ending without a beginning. I'll let you know how it turns out.
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Jack, so pleased to be of help. I've thought often of your Faith, Hope and Charity. Enjoy the ride! She sounds like a heck of a character. By the way, I'm writing an ending without a beginning. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Please do!
Oh, and if you're curious, I've put the first two sections online:
The Woman Who Hitchiked With Cats (Work In Progress) (http://www.writingforums.com/showthread.php?t=80421). I'd love to hear your comments. :)
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For me it's around page 100. It's early enough that the end isn't in sight and late enough to question the hundred pages I've already written...I love the last 50 pages.
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*watches the thread stagger around* It's alive... It's ALIVE!!!
For what it's worth, the ending is usually a mad, downhill slalom ride for me. All I can do is hang on, try to keep up with the action, and pray I don't get flung off the toboggan and into a tree. The middle's the worst, the absolute worst. Usually by then I've set up my beginning and drawn the story lines, and I probably have some notion of where I'm going to end up, what the big climax is going to be. I just can't make middles that work. Heck, you can even see that in the Dresden fic I posted; the middle isn't as good as the beginning or the end. I hate that people can tell where I began having problems writing, but you can.
Once I skipped the "middle", I started writing again when Grace wakes up screaming in the car and wrote the rest down in one sitting, fingers flying as I tried to keep up with the images in my head. And I adore writing the final few pages, the epilogue/denoument sort of part that is the written sigh of relaxation after the adrenaline rush.
Middles suck. Endings rule.
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It's the middle for me ;)