Crisis?

I'm not sure what genre you're working in, but I write thrillers.

This is going to sound strange, but as I was writing my novel, I didn't worry too much about the ending. The reason? I think the endings of thrillers are weak 80% of the time. I rarely read a book -- and I read 2 or 3 a week -- that has a really strong climax.

If the book is good, I usually hate coming to the end because that means my time with it is almost finished. So the ending, for me, is no more important than the hook. And maybe less so.

So I guess this is a long-winded way of saying: Don't stress it. Just let it happen. Do it the way that you envisioned it and it will all come out okay. When my book sold, the first thing my editor did was suggest changes for the ending. And I made those changes.

It'll come out okay.

A similar thing happened to me when I was in the middle of the climax chapters. I couldn't seem to find the right way to get to the ending. I mean, I knew how the book was going to end, but I was having trouble plotting it right.

As Will Lavender says above, just let it happen. But my additional advice is to take it slowly. Don't rush through writing the climax. If your normal output is 1,500 words a day, don't try to push for that now. It may get to the point where you write only one page. But then tomorrow you'll change everything and start over.

The other thing I did was take a week or two off while I thought about the climax and did other things. Then I was able to return to the manuscript a little more fresh and ready to finish it.

allen

Rhea L said:

Obviously, I always forget to say the thing that matters.... LOL. I write fantasy.

I keep telling myself that the first draft is to get the story out... the second (third, fourth) is to make it good, the way I want it to be. But, it seems, my mind refuses to be comforted by that idea, and insists instead that I get it right the first time. Must be the dreaded (no, really) perfectionist in me speaking up at the worst times - as in, when I need that novel finished so that I have something to work with later.

I don't outline because it kills the story for me (making it feel as though it's already written), so each next scene happens as a direct consequence of the preceding one... except I let the story go its own way, and often don't know what's coming until it hits me square in the face. Part of the stress might be stemming from that: if I took the wrong turn somewhere, I just might have compromised the integrity of the rest of the book.

And I'm rambling again. Thanks for the encouragement, Will!

Click to expand...

Oh, I'm the same way.

I didn't mean to suggest in my post that I was just writing merrily along with the idea that I'd just change it all down the road anyway.

I wanted it -- the whole thing, beginning to end -- to be good. "Perfect," even. But I just didn't feel the pressure to make mine a bombshell of an ending because (1) I knew my hook and characters were solid and (2) you just don't read many great endings in the mystery/thriller genre. I simply ended the book in the manner I originally thought I was going to do it.

I knew it was strong enough so that it wouldn't limit the appeal of the book to publishers, but I also knew that it had enough gaps that someone might want to tweak it down the road. No matter: if I would have obsessed over that fact, I could have never finished. And one has to finish, eventually.

(A sports analogy: a guy doesn't work exhaustingly to polish his three point shot because he has other skills that are important. And in the NBA, nobody can shoot the three point shot that well anyway.)

All great advice. Only thing I'd add is to remember that the book is the boss. Perhaps you're antsy because where you want the book to go isn't where it's suppose to go anymore. Just a thought.

I'm hitting something similar right now, too, in my fantasy WIP. My characters are about to confront the bad guy, but I'm waffling about what the confrontation should be. I've got the scenes afterward pictured in my head, but the actual confrontation is giving me trouble.

My plan is to try to tackle it this weekend. I'm going to write the story up to the trouble scene, then if I don't come up with an epiphany on the confrontation, I'll skip that scene and deal with the aftermath. With the way my story is constructed, what happens in the confrontation is going to be defined by what comes before. Right now I'm too close to the story to see the big picture anymore. I figure I'll have clearer vision when I revise, so I can fill in the gaps later.

Good luck!

I know you don't outline but, have you ever considered writing a rough "road map" before you start writing a book?

I find I have much more peace of mind when writing a story if I have a nice general idea of the story's begginning, middle and climax before I write the story. This road map isn't chiseled in stone and you can deviate all you want. You can even change the final destination if you like.

I find it helps me keep pushing forward when I have a map or a guide.

I spend as much time planning a book before I write it as I do initially writing it.

Some of this may come from my computer science background back when I was doing a weird mix of databases and video games I would spend much more time actually planning and designing my projects than programming them.

I think I gave this advice yesterday in another thread: WHen you get 2/3 done, write the ending scene, and then write the scenes that are missing between what you have and the end. A natural sequence comes to me when I know where I am going.

I do an odd mix of outlining and drafting, but when it comes right down to it I will often at least sketch out my climax first or close to it. This often happens because I have a strong vision of my characters and know how they will face each other at the end. Sometimes it's a shootout (I write mostly Westerns), but not always. One of my WIPs has two brothers confronting each other, so the climax is mostly dialog (though there is an action scene on both sides of it...hard to explain without going into tons of plot detail), but I knew early on what they'd be confronting each other about.

The best way to find out if you're going in the wrong direction is just to keep writing. Either you'll feel fine after a while and it was just jitters, or the story will completely train wreck. Which point, you just back up a little ways and go down a different way, if you see what I mean.

I write fantasy, and I blew through my most recent first draft's climax in a single day, as is my wont; ditto for the previous two novels of mine which I actually saw all the way through the editing process. I advise you to set up an iTunes playlist of really dramatic music that fits your WIP and to set it to play continuously, and to then just start writing and let your anxieties slip away. I experienced the same kind of feelings, but the music helped to drive them away.