Not Wanting To Finish A Story?
These days, I try to isolate and understand a few more writing matters, that I hadn’t perused before, and I’ve been wondering if it’s very unusual for an author to find herself, to say it simply, not wanting to finish a story? Not for fear of failure or rejection, that is, but for the sake of keeping the characters ‘alive’ for a little longer.
Coming from a RPG background and from campaigns/chronicles that would last for months if not for years, I think I took a few bad habits, in that I want to keep the story going for as long as possible before putting an end to it. However, this doesn’t work well for novels, lest for short stories. When I find myself in the position of reader, part of me wants to world and characters to go on existing, yet part of me also wants the whole plot to get to a conclusion at some point–no neverending series of a gazillion of books that tends to all look like each other after a while.
This is one the reasons why I’ve taken the decision to keep my planned “big” story down to a trilogy, although it’s not easy to restrain myself in that regard. I also regularly find myself unable to easily end a story. I’ve had this problem again with my NaNovel, struggling like mad with the last chapter (and still not satisfied with it, and tempted to rewrite it every two hours… in my eyes, it isn’t done yet). Every time it’s time for me to finish, I feel like I’m taking a gun and putting a bullet right into the characters’ heads.
Still, I think one of my most supportive friends put it well when she told me: “It’s not shooting them in the head… It’s only reloading the gun to fire another round”.
I like this comparison. I really need to force my mind to embrace it, but I like it no matter what.
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Cavan
I’ll admit that it’s not a problem I’ve ever had. By the time a story is coming to an end, I’m generally pretty anxious to move on to the next project.However, I have become pretty fond of the world and characters that I’ve created for my latest world. As a result, at some point, I’ll probably work on some standalone short stories set in the same universe, probably from the POV of some of the novel’s minor characters.Maybe this route would work for you, since you get to finish your story, but still get to write about the world you’ve created.
Chris Howard
I’ve had trouble finishing stories plenty of times, but not because I wanted to keep the characters alive. Most of the time I think it’s because I haven’t come up with a creative way to end it, there were too many threads to tie up, or I didn’t like the direction the story took in the middle.One technique I’ve been using pretty consistently is to get partway through a story and then begin writing the ending. When I get it into something halfway formed, I’ll go back and write toward it. This seems to work for most stories.
fredcq
I am a fantasy writer that has a serious aversion to trilogies. I have expounded on this to great lenght at my blog so I will not go into it here. Let’s just say, I don’t like to be roped into read ing tree books of more with the same story arc.The thing is, I, like you, have a role playing background. I have run campaigns with the same characters for years and years. How do I deal with this as a writer? Well, I do plan on using the same core group of characters in my novels but I want to do it in a more episodic way. The novel that I just finished has a beginning and an end. You could read this book and feel like the story is over. The next book, will have the same characters but the story line will be completely different. I would hope that you could read this book without ever reading the first book.My fantasy campaigns were like this. We would play one story line for weeks, the characters would accompish their goal and then onto the next story.A good example of a writer who did this was Robert E. Howard. He wrote many Conan stories, both short and in novel form but all of the stand alone. You could pick any story, read it and feel satisfied. I am very drawn to this sort of writing. I like the idea of the same characters but in different situations. What I don’t want to read is the same characters taking 3-6 books (12+ in Robert Jordans case) to reach one goal. Of course, most fantasy writers fall into this trap and I am certainly in the minority on this one!By the way, my best friend and gaming buddy for 20 years is moving down the street from me with his family. I guess I will be breaking out the dice and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay books after all!
Benjamin Solah
I can sometimes have the opposite problem in feeling that I have to end the story soon, so I end it abruptly and the result is pretty poor.
Yzabel
Cavan–This sounds like a good idea. I’ve already considered keeping ideas for 1 or 2 “standalone stories” that would come before the time of the main arc, or focus on minor characters. It’s nothing to write about now (else the novel itself won’t be written!) but you’re right. It can be a good solution.
Yzabel
Chris–Nice one as well. I think it can work too if I just plan the ending (writing it too soon also has the ability to make me less excited about the story as a whole, so I need to remain wary, and not overdo it).
Yzabel
Fredcq–I see your point! I don’t have a problem with trilogies myself, although I’ll have a problem with everlasting plot arcs of 5+ books. This one, I can’t keep it to one novel only, though. There’s too much to say, too much to reveal, and toning down the story elements isn’t something I want to do. What I wan to do is to try to wrap each volume nicely (leaving plot hooks for the next one, while having a “complete” story all the same in each book). I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it, but careful planning should already tell me if it’s doable or not. This is something I’ll start to do in February… er, well, in two days 😉
Yzabel
Benjamin–This has happened to me a couple times, as I lacked time to properly wrap up a story. Frustrating, isn’t it.
fredcq
Sounds like you had better get busy, lol. Feb. is almost here!!!
Yzabel
Eeeh, yes, that’s what I noticed today 😀