today's moment of self-realization
Feb. 17th, 2003 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyI suck at endings.
My charming and talented beta reader,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
heres_luck, pointed out to me that The Project vol. 1 ends with aggressive abruptness, not unlike someone who has been guillotined. So, since I have been unexpectedly productive this weekend, finishing up with the Tribulations of Chapter Eleven (go me!), today I tried again with the ending. I'm not sure it's any better. I just have no sense of HOW to end a story--not in the sense of not knowing what has to happen, but in the simple sense of how do I twist the words around to signal closure. (I also suck at this in my academic writing, so perhaps it's just a congenital difficulty with shutting up.) I had the same problem with the novel that's currently out in the field; the story was over and nobody had anything else to say, really, and I finally said, Well, fuck, I have to end it SOMEHOW, and more or less just stopped writing.
This is not satisfying, but I haven't a clue how to go about it better.
But the good news is I have finished this pass at editing this ms, having taken for-freaking-ever at it. I feel good about this. I might even go eat some minstrels.
Must now begin again with the battered, scribbled-on ms and the computer files; perhaps by the time Chapter Twelve comes 'round again, I'll have figured out how to tie it off neatly. Probably not, but I can hope.
My charming and talented beta reader,
heres_luck, pointed out to me that The Project vol. 1 ends with aggressive abruptness, not unlike someone who has been guillotined. So, since I have been unexpectedly productive this weekend, finishing up with the Tribulations of Chapter Eleven (go me!), today I tried again with the ending. I'm not sure it's any better. I just have no sense of HOW to end a story--not in the sense of not knowing what has to happen, but in the simple sense of how do I twist the words around to signal closure. (I also suck at this in my academic writing, so perhaps it's just a congenital difficulty with shutting up.) I had the same problem with the novel that's currently out in the field; the story was over and nobody had anything else to say, really, and I finally said, Well, fuck, I have to end it SOMEHOW, and more or less just stopped writing.This is not satisfying, but I haven't a clue how to go about it better.
But the good news is I have finished this pass at editing this ms, having taken for-freaking-ever at it. I feel good about this. I might even go eat some minstrels.
Must now begin again with the battered, scribbled-on ms and the computer files; perhaps by the time Chapter Twelve comes 'round again, I'll have figured out how to tie it off neatly. Probably not, but I can hope.
