Tying up the loose ends

Yesterday, I had the first good writing day in weeks. For the last couple of months the equilibrium of my family life had been thrown into disarray which had stop me focusing clearly on my writing. At last my emotional side has found some sort of balance to my unhappiness about a problem which is impossible for me to solve, or bring to a satisfying conclusion.

Letting go of the problem, and rechanneling all my emotions back into my writing is helping me to find some much needed peace of mind.

Yesterday, I completed and edited another chapter. As I started work on the next one I realised I had reached the point in my storytelling where I need to bring about a satisfying conclusion to my novel.

Though I’m writing a work of fiction, like in life, I need my readers to fully understand the what, whys and wherefores of my main character, James’ behaviour. Though, he’s a serial killer I couldn’t have my readers loathing him as that wouldn’t make them care enough about him to want to read on.

So I had to rethink everything I knew about serial killers, to get inside their heads. After reading as much as I could stomach, I set about writing my novel.

Now as the end is in sight I need to make the ending as good, if not better than the beginning. Yes, it is true that the beginning is very important, to hook the reader, making them want to set off on the journey with your main character. Hopefully, by the time the reader has unknowingly reached the middle of the story they are just as eager to know how it all ends.

This is where all your careful plotting comes in. 🙂

Oh, so you haven’t plotted? 😦

Well, I wouldn’t worry too much. The thing about writing is you can’t be sure exactly where the story will take you, but I try to at least have some idea where I’m heading to, or for. You never set out on a journey without some idea where you are going. Yes, I agree, sometimes it’s the not knowing that makes for the excitement, but with writing that’s the reserve of the reader, not the writer.

I’m all for an open-ending in a book, where the reader writes the own conclusion, but the writer must have left enough information in the final chapter for the reader to be satisfied. I dislike books where I can’t draw on enough information, where I have to re-read the last few chapters to see if I’ve missed something important.

A vague ending isn’t a great ending. If ,like me, you dislike them, then I’m sure you toss the book aside in disgust the same as I do.

I don’t want this to happen with my book. I want my readers to have a great read from cover to cover.

Unlike life, which has left me feeling a bit vague and frayed around the edge, I can rewrite the ending of my novel as make times as I want until its right and I’m happy with it.

Ernest Hemingway rewrote the ending to his famous novel ‘A Farewell to Arms’ 47 times. I’m not about to do that, but at least at the late stage in my novel’s life, I can do a bit of rethinking and plotting to get it right.