Begin with the End

Let’s start by reviewing what we have already discussed about writing stories.

First, the difference between a situation and a story: A situation is simply a problem no one can do anything about. Not even a change of heart will help. A story is a problem someone must struggle to resolve. The main character may get what she wants or she may change—or both, of course—but in a story a resolution of some kind is possible.

Second, a story plan: Story begins with a character, a character who has a problem he must struggle to solve or who wants something she must struggle to get. So you need to know who your character is, what the problem is—or what the goal is—and what or who is keeping your character from getting what he wants. When you have the answers to those questions, you are almost ready to begin writing your story.

But there is one more piece to a story plan. I recommend that you have an ending in mind before you begin to write.

Really? But doesn’t the ending just come to you in a flash of inspiration as you are writing? Maybe. Maybe not. And if it doesn’t, what are you going to have in front of you for all your writing? A problem without a solution. In other words, a situation . . . and, once more, a situation is not a story.

I have heard some writers say, “If I knew the ending, I would never write the story. I write the story to find out how it will end.” And such a loose process may work for some writers. But when one of my writing students tells me that she is writing a story in order to discover the ending, I feel cautious. I may even feel a bit skeptical. Simply writing and writing and writing in order to find out what is in your head may be one way to go, but it strikes me as a journey fraught with peril. The chances of discovering that what you have in front of you isn’t a story at all are high. It’s a risk you may not want to take.

The solution doesn’t have to be neat. It certainly doesn’t need to be—and probably shouldn’t be—obvious. The best endings, in fact, are both inevitable and a complete surprise.

I grow impatient with stories that tell me too much about what kind of ending to expect on the first page. (If a story starts off with a kid who is afraid of an old woman everyone knows to be a witch, don’t you just know that it is going to end with the discovery that the old woman is really nice?) But what the best endings accomplish is an emotional pay off, a kind of, “Oh!” of surprise, followed by a sigh of satisfaction . . . “Of course!” And when you, as the writer, know what will bring that sigh of satisfaction, you will have your ending.

You may not know everything that is going to happen along the way. In fact, you probably won’t. Most of us start off with much that remains to be discovered. That is part of the fun of writing a story, making discoveries along the way. But if you know your ending, you will have your story under control from the first line.

Let me give you an example of the way knowing the ending before I began to write shaped one of my novels. Runt is the story of a wolf pup. Runt’s problem is that he realizes he is a disappointment to his father. He is too small, much smaller than his brothers and sisters, which is how he earned the name Runt. This is what I knew before I began writing, that Runt’s story would be his struggle for his father’s approval.

There could be any number of possible resolutions to such a problem. Runt could grow up and decide he doesn’t need his father. He could go off and leave him behind. Or he could learn to be tougher than any of the other pups, tougher even than his father, and he could fight the other pups—or even his father—to win his father’s respect. Or he could decide that being the pack runt is an honorable place. He could accept his role at the bottom of the pack, as the Omega wolf, the clown, the one everyone picks on. Or—and this is the ending I decided on—he could discover a talent that didn’t require either toughness or size. He could become the pack’s Singer.

Having decided that, that Runt would earn a new name and what it would be, I had the shape of the story complete in my mind when I sat down to write, even though much of Runt’s struggle was yet to be discovered. But I had Runt’s new name as my destination, and I was ready to begin my journey.

So this is what I recommend … begin with your character, his problem, and the solution for the problem. Don’t write the ending before you write the rest. Just know it in your head. If you write the ending first, you may well find you have run out of energy for writing your story at all. The desire to get to that important moment will pull your readers through your story, and it will pull you through the writing process, too.