Does anybody else find themselves writing the ending of a story before finishing the middle?

[WhiteTailDarkTip]

My main issue with the voting system is that it only reflects the opinions of those who finish the story. It doesn’t reveal why the vast majority abandon it, often on the very first page.

My latest opus has this comment, “You lost me the minute bethany and aylea kissed. I coukd not continue past that and regret wasting my time til then. 1*, less if I could” by which point, he’s (I’m assuming it’s a ‘he’) already 38k words in and well over halfway, and now he hates it so much he’d give me a negative rating?!?!

 

[StillStunned]

How’s this for a potential ending for a satire:

"I wish I could be in a fool’s paradise—never alone and most of the time very pleased with myself. Wait! Did I say fools, or was I thinking of pantsers?"

How's this for a difference between plotters and pantsers: plotters plot, pantsers write.

 

[THBGato]

If I had to skip the middle of the story when writing, why would I expect the reader not to do the same? If what I'm writing isn't compelling enough to hold my attention, I'd better just abandon what I'm writing and begin a new story at the ending.

Yes, this is exactly why I know I'm struggling if I end up skipping ahead. Clearly, I'm boring myself (or I wouldn't be desperate to get to the end/first kiss/crisis point) so therefore readers will probably be bored too.

 

[TheLobster]

If I had to skip the middle of the story when writing, why would I expect the reader not to do the same? If what I'm writing isn't compelling enough to hold my attention, I'd better just abandon what I'm writing and begin a new story at the ending.

I don't think it's necessarily wrong for longer stories to have some "breather" passages that had to be written more deliberately. But I do agree that the crucial parts are more likely to hold reader's attention if the author was enthusiastic about writing them.

And I do include the opening in this category. I'd be hesitant to take up a story idea if I'm not excited to type in those first few paragraphs that get the ball rolling ASAP. I always write openings first, and while I do edit them, of course, I don't recall a story where I'd just rewrite or replace one completely later on. That first thing that went in? Yeah, it pretty much stays, because that's the best I could do.

 

[Writer61]

I got about 6000 words into the story I'm currently working on and suddenly I'm feeling compelled to write the ending. I'd had a general idea for how I wanted to end the story, but now it looks like I'm going to be filling in the middle after I get the rest done.

Like you I usually have a good idea of the ending but I don't usually write it until I have the bulk of the story done. That said, my drafts tend to be a patchwork of completed text, text which needs work, and notes. On at least one occasion I wrote the end earlier than usual.

 

[Cagivagurl]

Yes, this is exactly why I know I'm struggling if I end up skipping ahead. Clearly, I'm boring myself (or I wouldn't be desperate to get to the end/first kiss/crisis point) so therefore readers will probably be bored too.

Almost every time I attempt to write something I get to a point where I cannot make anything work....
Even my pencil is bored.
Sometimes I just try to push through and see if I can find an emotional pivot point. Or I close it and move on to a different story and go back to it later. Hopefully with a fresh perspective...
Walking away hurts... Pride maybe.... Losing sucks...

 

[StillStunned]

Do I need to remind you where you're sharing your writing? You can't expect all your readers to be quality readers, just as you can't seriously expect only positive feedback on social media, or any media, for that matter.

IMHO, the only pantser writers worth reading are geniuses, whose frenzied stream of consciousness might still be profound, coherent, and compelling. There are no geniuses here, not even close. I suppose some may view themselves as successful, but only if they’re not fooling themselves about which platform their success is built on.

Anyone who's written a story is more successful than anyone who hasn't.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Often. I'll dot around a tale writing whichever parts inspire me at the time. I've done about 12,000 words on one story with a twist, so the ending is crucial and I keep returning and tweaking it, but the big sex scene beforehand is only 1/4 done because there's lots of emotion and some miscommunication which needs to be in there and I need to think exactly what acts should happen and how.

Finally wrote the first kiss to my satisfaction, and have ideas for describing some of the next bits. Still not totally satisfied with the ending.

Once I've got a complete draft I go back and tighten up the beginning, because that's got to entice the readers to stay, and it often suffers from me not yet knowing the tone of the story and rambling a bit (one reason not to write in order).

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Brandon Sanderson, bizarrely popular fantasy and SF writer, has said that he often starts out with just the ending and writes backward to build the story. It makes it easier for him to insert foreshadowing, for one thing, since he knows what will happen. He also says that he's a plotter for story but a pantser for character, by the way.

-Annie

 

[Lifestyle66]

For the past year or more, I've written stories with the ending mostly complete as I worked out the details in the beginning and middle. My latest story outline is only 800 words long and I might complete the final scene and epilogue before the rest.

But I'll probably resist writing those scenes until later. In my last two stories, after writing the endings and progressing on the middle of the story, the characters took over and changed it!

 

[StillStunned]

You keep pestering me, so I guess I owe you the truth...

Although I consider this type of writing inferior, it doesn't mean I don't occasionally resort to it when a surge of creativity compels me to sit and type frantically before it fades.

Even as a pantser, I look down on you as a god.

From your postings here in the AH, I get the impression you're a multiple Booker Prize winner with the odd Nobel Prize as well. But here's the thing: you huff and you puff and you sneer at everyone, without once showing us your own work. Any writer with a 750-word story that contains 1500 mistakes and is devoid of style, plot and development has more to contribute, and more right to criticise other writers.

Your writing might be godlike, but only in the sense that there's no evidence of its existence.

 

[SimonDoom]

But now that I've finished writing the ending, everything else seems to be flowing like butter on a hot skillet.

I find it helps me too. It's clarifying. When I go back to where the story left off I have a guiding principle to tell me whether each word serves a purpose or not. It's easier to get there if I know where I'm going.

 

[SimonDoom]

Your writing might be godlike, but only in the sense that there's no evidence of its existence.

That deserves a mic drop.

 

[Jorunn]

If your muse takes you to the ending, then go there. Clearly, your brain is focused there and the ideas are in your mind. You want to get them down on 'paper'. Nothing worse than working a great ending through in your thoughts, and thinking you will remember the full context when you finally get to your ending. You won't. If nothing more, write the main ideas of the ending in outline form, and fill in the sentence structure and details later.

 

[StillStunned]

What makes you think you’d recognize good writing if you came across it? You wouldn’t notice nuanced, multi-layered, sophisticated writing even if it struck your empty skull.

Perhaps so. But the fact is that my empty skull remains noticeably unstruck by any writing from you, good or bad.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I find myself writing a series of 'ink blots', scenes which gradually expand to combine into a story. So, yes.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

If I had to skip the middle of the story when writing, why would I expect the reader not to do the same? If what I'm writing isn't compelling enough to hold my attention, I'd better just abandon what I'm writing and begin a new story at the ending.

Because the writing experience and the reading experience are different things. You are trying to blend the two by reading what you are writing as you write it. Nothing wrong with that, but that is why you are having that experience, and it might - I say might - be handcuffing you as a writer.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

How’s this for a potential ending for a satire:

"I wish I could be in a fool’s paradise—never alone and most of the time very pleased with myself. Wait! Did I say fools, or was I thinking of pantsers?"

Sounds more like an insult than a satire.

How's this for a difference between plotters and pantsers: plotters plot, pantsers write.

And you took the bait.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I usually write the beginning and the end first, then bullet point out scenes to lead from one to the other. Quite often it all changes as I write, I'm very much a pantser and it all just builds up n my head as I move along. I don't often make many notes either. I just sit down and start writing and it comes....

 

[Areala-chan]

I usually write the beginning and the end first, then bullet point out scenes to lead from one to the other. Quite often it all changes as I write, I'm very much a pantser and it all just builds up n my head as I move along. I don't often make many notes either. I just sit down and start writing and it comes....

I've always felt you and I were similar in how we approach our stories.

I don't outline, but I always have the main story beats that I want to hit in my head, and I will write them down on post-it notes or in a text file while I'm brainstorming just so I don't forget. Once I start writing those beats though, they develop organically along with the characters and their reactions to them, and I'm apt to rearrange the order of their appearance until I feel I've got the flow right.

I almost always know what I want the story's outcome to be (especially if I have a twist or surprise in mind) before I begin writing. But the words of the ending are almost always composed after I've hit every story beat so I can tie everything together, close the loop, and snip any dangling threads.

 

[theMasterBaiter]

I usually have an outline, then I go back to fill in the details. But a few times, the story has just come flowing out, fully formed in one shot. It doesn't seem to correlate with ratings or even my own personal satisfaction, but the outline ones seem much less likely to get finished. I think I have 10 stories, including a book, sitting there in Google docs taunting me. I think it's current me giving the finger to past me for "demanding" that I take the story in the outlined direction. LOL. But then I've also tried just allowing myself to change the outline and that hasn't helped

 

[WCSGarland]

I usually have an outline, then I go back to fill in the details. But a few times, the story has just come flowing out, fully formed in one shot. It doesn't seem to correlate with ratings or even my own personal satisfaction, but the outline ones seem much less likely to get finished. I think I have 10 stories, including a book, sitting there in Google docs taunting me. I think it's current me giving the finger to past me for "demanding" that I take the story in the outlined direction. LOL. But then I've also tried just allowing myself to change the outline and that hasn't helped

So far, I've found that I can only work on one story at a time. Hopefully you can get your plotter self and your pantser self to reconcile and finish all those stories.

 

[WhiteTailDarkTip]

I usually have an outline, then I go back to fill in the details. But a few times, the story has just come flowing out, fully formed in one shot. It doesn't seem to correlate with ratings or even my own personal satisfaction, but the outline ones seem much less likely to get finished. I think I have 10 stories, including a book, sitting there in Google docs taunting me. I think it's current me giving the finger to past me for "demanding" that I take the story in the outlined direction. LOL. But then I've also tried just allowing myself to change the outline and that hasn't helped

This. Exactly this. My story ‘Mrs Adams’ fell out of my head over a period of four days. There was virtually no rewriting. It’s not really my milieu either. It’s one of my most popular too.
I have several tens of thousands of words lingering in the wings, waiting to become a fully fledged story

 

[Britva415]

The responses remind me of that time I saw back-to-back replays of Inside The Actors Studio. One was Dennis Hopper and the next was Christopher Walken.

They were both asked to describe their process of reading a script and anticipating how they would perform it. And they couldn’t have been further apart in their approach.

Hopper really got into it, and would in fact read the whole script out loud, including other characters’ lines, and really wring out all the different interpretations and performance options he could find in the script. He wanted to be prepared for anything the director might think up.

Walken said, “The first thing I do is take a heavy black magic marker and strike out all the lines that aren’t mine.” And he’d just wait for direction after memorizing the lines.

 

[WCSGarland]

Thank you all for taking the time to respond to this thread that I started. The responses and comments are helping me feel connected and welcomed to the community. I'm now really glad that I decided to join the community and finally give voice to the stories banging around in my head.