Joined: 07 Sep 2007 Posts: 523 Location: Upstate New York
Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 3:23 pm
I do this all the time with my narrative poetry. I will come up with a beginning and an end, and then have to fill in the middle bits.
I don't know if I would necessarily recommend this method to other writers, but it is how the creative process often works for me personally.
I guess, if you have a plot in mind, you might come up with the resolution first and work back from there. However, you can also let the story grow organically from beginning to end.
Often times, when I write, I get flashes of scenes. I then try to "connect-the-dots" as it were. _________________ "I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!"
Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 418 Location: Minnesota
Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 4:08 pm
Writing the ending first is standard procedure for writing mysteries. After all, you have to know who did it, how, and why before you can figure out how to take the reader to that conclusion.
I think it is always good to know where the story is going. Thus, you can always work your way -- no matter how circuitously -- to the end. You do not necessarily have to know all of the details and write it down, but you should have an idea where the story goes or you end up wandering around. This, in my opinion, makes for poor reading. _________________ Douglas E. Gogerty
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Around the Campfire
"No, I'm from Iowa. I just work in outer space."
-James T. Kirk
Sometimes, I find having the ending ready makes a good target, sometimes it takes away all the fun and my writing stops...
I was lucky with 'Project Lorraine'. I'd planned it as a novelette, wrote (IIRC) four or five chapters, drafted a finale that I expected to be #10. To my surprise, that became #30-- And it could have been ~#35, but I lost my nerve...
Several other tales have foundered when I've skipped ahead and written the finale, this one deserved better...
I only did it once. I was in a library researching another story and imagined a scene in a graveyard. I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget it. When I got home, I looked at what I'd written and realized it was the epilogue to a book. I wrote the prologue and then figured out what the story was about. I've never worked that way before or since, but it did show me that there's more than one way to approach a book.
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