Patti O'Shea's Blog

Sorry about being late posting. Some days I run so short on time that I have to choose between writing for the blog and writing my stories. Last night was one of them and I decided to go with my story. Maybe there’s no point in posting now when it’s the beginning of a long, holiday weekend, but I skipped posting last week to write and I didn’t want to do it twice in a row.

I was talking with another writer about ending stories. I usually do okay with coming up with a final climax, and while wrapping up the romance part is a little harder, I think I manage that, too. The part that kills me, though, is the last paragraph or two. Or three. Wrapping up and getting out of the story kills me.

There was an author whose name escapes me now who I heard talk about grace notes. That a writer should bring an image/symbol in at the start of a book, touch on it occasionally through the story, and circle back to it again at the end, a sort of echo of the beginning. I’ve tried to kind of do this, but with an idea rather than an object/symbol. I don’t feel like I’ve done this successfully.

Some authors seem to end with the perfect sentence, the one that leaves a reader smiling as they close the book. This is what I want to be able to do–leave the story on high note.

I finished the first draft of my time travel story last night and ran into the same problem again–closing out without rambling pointlessly before drifting to an awkward end. So does anyone have any ideas that they use? Links to websites where other writers talk about how they do this?

Once, not really all that long ago, I used to love starting a book. This was my time to explore the characters, get to know them, and get a handle on their story.

Now, I find writing the first five chapters (give or take a couple) to be like slogging through mud. Since I’ve usually just finished a book shortly before, I’m used to a much faster writing pace. I always pick up speed in the second half and going back to this careful, exploratory writing is frustrating. It’s especially hard for me when I have multiple projects I also want to start.

I try to accept this because once I have the first five chapters down right, I know the foundation is solid, but it’s still frustrating to me when I want to be back at end of the book speeds.

Once, I used to love the first draft of a book and have to force myself to work on revisions. The fun part was telling the story, and with it already down, I’d have to force myself to go through it again.

Now, I love revising. It’s the first draft that I wish I could avoid. Yeah, I know. Impossible. But once I have the first draft down, I know I have the story and revising is much more fun now. I’m still not quite sure how this happened or when, just that it has. This is probably the most bizarre.

Once, I was way over on the seat-of-the-pants side of the scale.

Now, well, I’m still not a plotter, but I like having a synopsis before I begin writing because it gives me a map to work with. I also do something I call chapter goals (or scene goals–it depends how far I break it down). I revise to use the word plotting, but it’s kind of like that and that’s as far as I’m willing to concede because the idea of doing the P word locks up my brain.

I wonder if these changes were an evolution because there’s no real turning point that I can say, a-ha, that’s when it happened! It just kind of made an appearance on my radar screen one day.