Endings are so tricky! So hard to get right.
For most of my stories I know the ending first. I know where I want to end up – and then work to find the story that gets me there. For my current YA-WIP… I haven’t known. I thought it would come to me. That it would just appear and flow across my computer screen. Or that I would dig it up from under a rock. Or something magical like that.
I was wrong.
It has been hard hard hard.
The right ending has to be satisfying – and to wrap things up, both externally and internally. It has to appeal to both the brain and the heart. It has to make sense. To be logical and satisfying. Surprising, yet inevitable. To grow organically from everything that came before it. To make the reader sigh contentedly and whisper YES!
It easy to KNOW this. It is hard to DO this.
I am thankful for my notes on endings from Cindy Faughnan’s graduate lecture that she presented at VCFA. She is brilliant and thoughtful and kind – and she has good news about a new BEGINNING! Yay, Cindy!
Sarah Wones Tomp
WRITING ON THE SIDEWALK
