Yikes . . .

JonSwift · Aug 3, 2009

I've got three or four chapters left in my novel and I know the ending but not how to get there. I've tried mulling it over and waiting for inspiration and I've tried forcing myself to write through it but nothing good emerges. I'm stuck at a fight scene involving multiple characters in a first person story (urban fantasy). I think I might have written myself into a corner. Any ideas on how to get out of it? Anything at all?

(My search function isn't letting me use it, sorry if this "getting stuck towards the end of a book" has been addressed before.)

kuatolives · Aug 3, 2009

I have no knowledge of your particular painted corner, but sometimes when I find myself in one, I'm there because I've unconsciously followed a cliched blueprint and am now trying to get to the cliched ending with some kind of
magic bridging event. It's harder to put the support columns into the Parthenon when you've already got a roof.

The fact you already know your ending without having plotted out your book (otherwise you'd know how to get to the ending) suggests to me you are following a cliched blueprint. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing!

Advice: Think about it until a magic bridging solution presents itself (there may be one waiting there for you) or go back to the point your gut tells you things went wrong, and start over from that point, even if its from the first paragraph of the book.

JonSwift · Aug 3, 2009

Kuatolives, yeah I didn't outline the majority of the book, but fortunately I don't think I need to go back to the beginning (thank god). I have an idea where the story gets out of hand and I lose it. Guess I'll go back to it and try to figure something out.

Karen Junker · Aug 3, 2009

All of my former crit partners are now published authors. When they used to get painted into a corner, I'd tell them to kill off a character. At the very least, have someone show up with a weapon...

Karen Junker · Aug 3, 2009

What I'm saying is: up the stakes.

JonSwift · Aug 3, 2009

Up the stakes by making things more dangerous for the protag . . . ?

Karen Junker · Aug 3, 2009

Yeah, and then he has to pull out his secret skill that is the thing he lacked at the beginning of the story, but which he has now grown enough to accept about himself...in order to save himself and his posse.

JonSwift · Aug 3, 2009

Ah.

Cheers.

Mumut · Aug 3, 2009

Or you could use bubbles. Write your story on a whiteboard as a series of bubbles in black ink. Subplots could be blue. Where you are now draw an array of red bubbles and write in anything that could happen and even anything that couldn't (it's fiction, isn't it?!). As you brainstorm, the cerebral exercising could bring out a brilliant new slant on the story.

Stunted · Aug 4, 2009

Oh. I just got out of that boat.

Go back to the last part that you thought was really good and go from there.

Even if you really like your idea about how it should end, if you're getting stuck, it may be an indication that you were wrong. Don't try to make your characters things that they don't want to do or anything that doesn't fit with the rest of the feel of the novel, even if it would be really cool.

NeuroFizz · Aug 4, 2009

...and then I woke up from the dream and realized she'd been spooning me the whole time.

You're welcome.

lucidzfl · Aug 4, 2009

NeuroFizz said:
...and then I woke up from the dream and realized she'd been spooning me the whole time.

You're welcome.

No doubt about it. Its time for a fart joke.

That ALWAYS gets the scene moving.

Namatu · Aug 4, 2009

I like to blow things up when that happens or create an argument between characters. Since it sounds like your characters are already arguing

I support the "blow things up" option. Drop a big old bomb of something smack in the middle!

Good luck.

James D. Macdonald · Aug 4, 2009

"When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand." -- Raymond Chandler

Myself, I like, "Suddenly, without warning, a naked woman screamed." (In Spanish: De pronto, sin aviso, gritó mujer desnuda.)

Shara · Aug 4, 2009

There's nothing to say you have to write the novel chronologically. If you know how it ends, and this is a first draft, just write something along the lines of "this scene to be written later" and then go straight to the ending and write that.

By the time you get to the same spot in the next draft, a solution will probably have presented itself!

This usually works for me.

Shara

Phaeal · Aug 4, 2009

Yeah, hop to the next point that excites you, that seems right, and blow through to the end. Once you have a complete first draft, you have something to tear apart and reform into a second draft.

I believe in the power of CAPPED FREE-WRITTEN NOTES. As in:

OKAY HERES THE PART WHERE WE HAVE A FIGHT BETWEEN JOE AND THE MUTILATOR. MUCH MAYHEM ENSUES, BLAH BLAH BLAH, UNTIL JOE GETS HIS LEG WHACKED OFF (ITS JUST A FLESH WOUND) AND MUTIE ESCAPES. NOW HOW TO GET TO THE ULTIMATE CONFRONTATION AT STARBUCKS? GOD I COULD USE A CARAMEL LATTE VENTI OF COURSE MAYBE ABIGAIL CAN SLAP A TOURNIQUET ON JOE AND MEANWHILE JORGE CAN TRACK MUTIE BY HIS SLUGLIKE TRAIL OF SLIME AND THE AMBULANCE ARRIVES FOR JOE BUT ABIGAIL HAS ALREADY HAULED HIM OFF IN A WHEELBARROW TO STARBUCK WHERE MUTIE IS TERRORIZING THE BARRISTAS AND EATING VANILLA SCONELETS WITH ABANDON OR WAS IT HIS SIDEKICK ABADDON...

And etc.

lucidzfl · Aug 4, 2009

James D. Macdonald said:
"When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand." -- Raymond Chandler

Myself, I like, "Suddenly, without warning, a naked woman screamed." (In Spanish: De pronto, sin aviso, gritó mujer desnuda.)

The door has hands!? What's worse, it's holding a gun!?

RUN!

seun · Aug 4, 2009

James D. Macdonald said:
"When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand." -- Raymond Chandler

Myself, I like, "Suddenly, without warning, a naked woman screamed." (In Spanish: De pronto, sin aviso, gritó mujer desnuda.)

Both these ideas are so amazingly cool, I had to repeat them.

Wark · Aug 4, 2009

Delete everything that keeps you from that ending and then fill in the blanks.

ishtar'sgate · Aug 4, 2009

JonSwift said:
I've got three or four chapters left in my novel and I know the ending but not how to get there.

If you like what you have so far perhaps it's simply a matter of changing the ending. The first ending to my novel wasn't working with what I'd written up to that point so I changed the ending and it was much better. Writing without an outline kind of lends itself to painted corners. Stay with what you love, ditch the rest and don't limit yourself by thinking you have to end it the way you originally planned to. If you've begun by letting the characters go where they want to go then let them go ahead and lead you to the ending that's right for them. Good luck!

NicoleMD · Aug 4, 2009

James D. Macdonald said:
Myself, I like, "Suddenly, without warning, a naked woman screamed." (In Spanish: De pronto, sin aviso, gritó mujer desnuda.)

Yeah, but that only works if everybody isn't already naked and screaming...

Nicole

vox · Aug 5, 2009

NicoleMD said:
Yeah, but that only works if everybody isn't already naked and screaming...

Nicole

Now THAT's funny! Ok, in that case, how about..."Suddenly a girl stopped screaming and put her clothes on"? That'll shake things up.

Libbie · Aug 5, 2009

Work backwards from your ending by asking yourself questions.

How is the conflict resolved?
What was the biggest factor in reaching that resolution?
Who initiated that one factor?
What motivated him?
...etc.

JoshW · Aug 5, 2009

I am currently in a similar situation with my WIP, though I have a very detailed outline... I am writing the scene that immediately precedes the climax. The scene BEFORE the climax just keeps getting bigger and bigger, but I can't bring myself to the point where all the stuff actually happens...

(OK. I realize that with a dirty mind, you could really do a lot with what I just said. Especially if you tie it in with the "naked woman suddenly screaming" motif. But I'm not going to change it!)

megan_d · Aug 5, 2009

I sometimes find that if I'm stuck like that it's because I'm trying to make my MC act out of character.

Yikes . . .

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