…you come to the end: then stop.

Endings are the point at which whatever changed in the protagonist’s life at the beginning has been resolved, and the story is over. Endings give many writers almost as much trouble as beginnings or middles (though often it’s not the same writers), though for different reasons. The

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Plotting in reverse

This is Part II of me trying to answer LM’s query, specifically the part about backward planning—that is, starting with a climax scene and working out the plot backwards from that. I had a whole other post written, then realized that I had gotten distracted talking about

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Ending after ending after ending

Stories are full of endings. From the ending of a multi-book plot arc to the ending of a sentence, writers face the same sorts of questions over and over: Have I said everything I need to say? Will this flow better if it’s longer or shorter? Does

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Dual climaxes

I recently read a story in which the writer had two villains whose respective plotlines had very different endings. One villain was heading for an action climax with a dramatic set-piece battle scene; the other was heading for an emotional confrontation ending in the revelation of all

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Enough End to Go On With

In spite of all the writing advice books and blogs and web sites that tell you to start by making up the ending, I can’t think of any professional writers I know who do this in the strictest sense, at least as their regular process. (I’ve known

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The End of the Plot

For a lot of writers, endings are the hardest part of plotting. Either they know where they want the story to end up, but not how to get there, or they know a lot of things about the story, but can’t seem to work out what the

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Too easy

At one of the recent conventions I attended, I ran into a writer who was having what she referred to as plot problems. Actually, they sounded more like ending problems; according to her, she did fine at creating all the setup, but then when she got to

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