WIP Challenge - Check In, Day 16 - Thursday

[the_rck]

Poll #14850

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 6

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Today I

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planned
0 (0.0%)

researched
1 (16.7%)

wrote
5 (83.3%)

sent to beta
0 (0.0%)

edited
1 (16.7%)

posted
1 (16.7%)

rested
1 (16.7%)

did something else
1 (16.7%)

The way I feel about that is

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Mean: 7.00 Median: 7.5 Std. Dev 2.94

Terrible 1		0 (0.0%)
2		1 (16.7%)
3		0 (0.0%)
4		0 (0.0%)
5		1 (16.7%)
6		1 (16.7%)
7		0 (0.0%)
8		0 (0.0%)
9		1 (16.7%)
Wonderful 10		2 (33.3%)

I often have trouble finding the ending of a story or a chapter. How do you know when you're at the end?

Sometimes, I need my beta readers/first readers to tell me. Other times, I sort of chop things off just as the characters are about to start something that I don't think the reader needs to see for the story to work. I feel like there isn't really an end; there's just a point at which the author's attention goes elsewhere.

Comments

[linaewen]

...there's just a point at which the author's attention goes elsewhere.

That's a good way of describing it, actually. A lot of times, my endings are points where you know something else will happen afterwards, but it's not important to talk about it. Deciding on how to end a story or chapter is not really something that's easy to describe, it's just one of those things I know when I see it.

[ladygriddlebone]

I very seldom start writing something if I don't know where it's going to end up. Granted, as I work on something it's very very likely that the end point will change (sometimes dramatically) from what I thought it would be, but I always try to have an ending in mind before starting. Otherwise I just get rambly and the plot meanders pretty pointlessly.