Tag: finish

The End | Bittersweet

B.I.C., Full Time, Ink Slaying, Kim Koning, Notes on Wrestling The Muse, WIP, Writing

The End

Image by Thalita Carvalho ϟ via Flickr

Do you ever have the feeling that you don’t want to write The End? 

“Books are never finished, they are merely abandoned.” 
Oscar Wilde

I am nearing the end of my 3rd and final draft of my WIP. I am finding every excuse to drag this out. I have spent 6 months with these characters and this story. I am not sure that I am ready for that relationship to come to an end. Thankfully I am working towards a deadline otherwise I would procrastinate by working on character arcs and story arcs for another 6 months. These last 6 months I have disappeared into the world of this story. I know the end is coming and I have already seen it in my mind’s eye. This does not make it any easier to accept. In fact it makes it worse. That is also why I am dragging out these last few thousand words. I know what is coming. I know I must write it this way because everything has been leading me to this point.

“The great art of writing is knowing when to stop.”                                                                    – Josh Billings

I have tried numerous alternate endings to this story. Why you ask? The ending that this story has been written before the story even began. If I change the ending, I may as well start over. I am dreading this ending though because even if I know how this story turns out, it will still be difficult to write.

“Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.”
Truman Capote


Sometimes with some stories you have to get ruthless with your characters. This is one of those stories. As I have been re-reading the last part of this WIP, I am quite shocked at my own cruelty. I am not cruel by nature. But writing just shows you that everyone has the ability and aptitude for both the good and the bad in life. In this story, I have had to bring out the ruthless and the cruel. It breaks my heart to end this story simply because I know the worst is yet to come. I almost want to send out a distress message to my characters to warn them.

“If you focus on the humanity of your stories, your characters, then the horror will be stronger, scarier. Without the humanity, the horror becomes nothing more than a tawdry parlor trick. All flash and no magic, and worst of all, no heart.”
— Don Roff

Why is it so difficult to make your characters hurt? For all the characters I have created, hurt and pain are integral parts to their growth and resolution. This sounds logical in theory but in reality when I am writing these scenes that I know will cause great hurt there is a macabre sense about the words. It is almost the same feeling you get when you drive past an accident or hear about a terrible incident. You don’t want to listen but you can’t help but listen. I think writing difficult scenes especially endings are in the same vein.

“I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose.”
Stephen King

So this brings me to this week and bringing this story to its final resolution: its final resting place. I will bring this story to an end this week. I will more than likely shed tears and rant and rave at the ending. But everything in this story has been leading to this point. I cannot put it off any longer.

“If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.”
T. S. Eliot

So this next week will be dedicated to finishing this story. Then writing the full synopsis for it. The drum roll…..Submission time!

“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him out to the public.”
Winston Churchill

Kim

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