End games
|August 14, 2009|
I’m finishing my trio of posts over at the Well Read Donkey today, on endings.
While also working ten hour days refining the final draft.
I wonder if my post over there makes the least bit of sense?
I’m finishing my trio of posts over at the Well Read Donkey today, on endings.
While also working ten hour days refining the final draft.
I wonder if my post over there makes the least bit of sense?
The art of the tease has been demonstrated with panache in the ending of that blog. Holy cow, my mind is racing and I’m sure all your readers will be speculating for the next months until we get the book in our hands. Well, in retrospect, that is not a bad thing, so well done. 🙂
A mile? Kids aren’t *that* bad….mostly. 😉
It’s been fun reading about your process- here it isn’t always as linear as ‘beginning-middle-end’ like the Donkeys’ was. So it was nice to read it in order, as it were.
The seven viewpoints bit reminds me of how LOCK was treated- multiple narrators. Slightly schizophrenic but also revealing in ways a singular point of view could never offer.
Interest piqued? Check. Book pre-ordered? Um, can we do that yet? Cause if we can, I am SO there.
Oh yes, it makes sense. It’s wonderful to have a window into the process dynamics of your writing, and now I have another blog to read in my spare time. BTW, the main problem I have with your endings is their existence. When readers move mentally into the world you have created, we have no idea where the cliffs and ravines are, because you seldom signal them. Resolution of the plot of the book is one thing, but when the ending of a book arrives shortly thereafter, readers are pulled bodily – well, mentally then- out of a world we have come to know, back into a physical world where the cat box needs scooping. It makes us grumpy.
My oh my…well, if I wasn’t going to buy the-novel-formerly-known-as-Green-Man at the first available opportunity before, I certainly am now.
*Seven* points of view? I’m counting characters…
What a superb statement! One of the most beautifully-worded and on-target descriptions I’ve ever read about endings is this one:
. . . the end needs to reward the emotional commitment of the reader. It has to gather up not only the plot threads, but those of theme and what can only be called flavor, and entwine them all in a sturdy and aesthetically pleasing knot.
Thank you, Laurie.
Hi, wandered over after reading your article in the MWA newsletter on “Fifteen Weeks of Bees” (sorry to put this here, but it seemed the most convenient way to go…) What an excellent article on drafting a social media campaign. It was extra helpful to include insights from the other members of your team. Very generous of you to share that. And thanks for the post on Mieville’s “The City and the City”. I’d meant to pick up the book and then forgot about it–now I’ll remember to run out and buy it!
Your post definitely makes a great deal of sense; I’m always extremely interested in seeing how different authors deal with writing towards an end (real or unknown). I was actually at Kepler’s a few days ago (embarrassingly buying a copy of “The Language of Bees” because I am so behind!) and so got to sound very knowledgeable when the cashier asked me if I knew that you were posting on their blog :o)
Endings should be satisfying for the reader, and it’s good to know that writers can find the process to be satisfying for them as well.
Laurie,
Beautifully written – The Donkey will have to add another strand to its name.
Writing may take: continuing practice, sweat and toil, sometimes very long days and result in cramped backs, eye-strain, social isolation for you – the writer – yet the awe, amazement, appreciation many of us feel is because when we play “cat’s cradle” our knots at the end may certainly be strong but “aesthetically pleasing”?
Thank you for sharing – dare we say – your God-given talent. 🙂