Pulling Together The Threads

Oh goodness, I deal with this ALL THE TIME. I write very long serials (over a hundred chapters), each of which connects to the previous serial, and so of course it gets really confusing toward the climax and the ending!

All I can do when I reach that point is halt work, untangle all the strands and separate them to see where they go, mull over the outcomes and how I want the story to reach its conclusion, and come up with a rough outline of the remainder of the story. (I also stopped all work on the series for over a year to take notes on all the previous parts...ugh.) What pushes me onward? The desire to finish the story, of course. And start the next.

Sorry this is kind of quick, I'm doing various things at the same time. But I definitely know that feeling.

I wish I had threads of plot to try to keep together, lol. I tend more to have the feeling "this is all arbitrary and so simple it will bore readers".

You don't have to pay every single plot line off and tie it in to a stunning finale. It would be good if you can, obviously (particularly if you are writing genre where you normally expect satisfying closure). But messy or ambiguous endings can work as well.

The big danger, I think, is trying too hard to tie everything up and so writing a weak or unrealistic ending. Deus ex machina being the most obvious of these dangers.

At least you have threads!! But I know exactly what you're talking about. My best advice: push forward, tie up what you can, write the ending. Walk away. Then come back with fresh eyes. You might be surprised at what does work! And what doesn't work you can fix (or delete). Just remember that a first draft doesn't have to "work". It just has to be finished, so that you can move onto the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th drafts...

I try to resolve what I can before I go into the arc of the ending. Any character issues or subplots are tied up before I reach that arc so I can focus just on the main storyline.

I can so relate. I'm down to the final 20,000 words, give or take, and have created several plot threads that could go in several directions. Will they meet up? If they do, it has to happen organically or it will seem forced. I just have to put my faith in the story. Like I have this MacGuffin that I want to really mean something by the end. It served its purpose at the beginning, but I'd rather it not languish into nothingness. By the end of the book, I may rewrite those parts to get rid of it, though its role was important at the start.

If the first draft isn't finished, barely holding the threads together is well enough. You can always write more than one version and give them each a look-over later--the one that fits should be noticable.

Besides, I've written things that, while I was writing them, I thought, "AHHHHHH This is such CRAP," then marked to scrap or re-write. Then, when I looked back to get the scene finished, I re-read what I wrote and found, "huh, perhaps I did know what I was doing afterall."

As hard as it is, best just sit down and write, and try to enjoy yourself. Remember, your book is never finished until you say it's finished, and even then it will always have some tweaking for you do do on it. Even if you write a load of shit, at least you've managed to find out how not to write the scene so you can write it another way.

There will always be doubt and insecurity; that's normal. Sometimes you only need time to overcome that and get writing, and sometimes you need to take a dump on doubt's face and run away screaming and making rude noises at it until you feel better.

Linda Adams said:

I try to resolve what I can before I go into the arc of the ending. Any character issues or subplots are tied up before I reach that arc so I can focus just on the main storyline.

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I second this-- it's a fallacy that everything has to be tied up at the climax or in the ending.

One trick I use is that one thread ties up by leading into the climactic finale. Then, the thread is out of the way and it clearly serves a great purpose.

Another thing-- do watch out for threads that are fun without serving the greater plot of the story. If they are really hard to tie up, it may be because they are irrelevant to the main conflict or final resolution.