by
Sometimes, the ending of a story changes.
I finished my latest novel yesterday. And no, writing “The End” on a story—and I literally do that—never gets old. This story had its spark in 2019. I piddled with it off and on until New Year’s Day 2025 when I decided this book would be the book I finish this year. I intended to finish it by 1 April.
That didn’t happen. But I’m really glad it took me this long because I never would have reached the ending I wrote.
Am I Really Changing the Ending?
As I walked the dogs on Thursday evening, I was pondering how and what to write for that last chapter. I had a closing scene in mind since 2020 or so and that’s the ending to which I’d been driving.
But as I tried to figure out how to, frankly, shoehorn my characters into a particular POV, I asked myself a seemingly simple question: What if the scene was not from the POV of that character? What if a different character was the main POV?
Like magic, that unlocked the story’s ending. Everything fell into place, and I knew how the scene would play out.
What About the Last Line?
Even though I knew how that last chapter was going to go, I wasn’t sure about the last line. As I was telling a fellow writer, my goal when a person reaches the end of one of my stories is to have their hearts pounding in their chest, cheering, or tearing up.
How was I going to achieve that?
That answer arrived, as many ideas do, in the shower on Friday morning. And when it happened, I got goosebumps and I teared up.
Two out of three ain’t bad.
No comments:
Post a Comment