A Post With Two Topics

[deird_lj]

Please comment on the topic you prefer to discuss...


For Writers

Do you guys often write stories where you already know how it's going to end before you start?
Not just generally knowing the plot - I'm talking the specific line that's going to be the last line in the fic.

I've just been thinking about my own writing, and I realised that, in fact, I often know the exact last line before I write the story. Mostly this means I'll end up figuring out what on earth the plot is just because I've got this last line sitting there, and I want to know how to get to it.

Does this happen to anyone else? Or just me?

(Bonus points if you can guess which of my stories started that way.)

______________________________________

For Unaccomplished People

I just found out that the guy who sits across from me at work - who is two years younger than me - is about to buy a house.

I am feeling very disheartened and unaccomplished.

Please, regale me with your stories of how you didn't learn how to tie your shoes until you were ten, or never ever learned how to cook - so that I can laugh at you share your pain.

Comments

[ms-scarletibis.livejournal.com]

Ha--I hardly know how it's going to end, let alone the last line...

<--is ignoring the "unaccomplished" portion :P

[deird1]

(You're clearly just a very accomplished person, and have nothing to say...)


I hardly know how it's going to end, let alone the last line...

Huh. Do you manage to figure out the endings halfway through writing, or right at the end?

[aisalynn.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, that's how I write all the time. If not a specific line, then at least a specific scene for the end. Usually I get an idea for the beginning, an idea for the end, and most of my writing process is just wrangling the characters and situations into some path that takes them from one point to the other. Sometimes, a new ending will pop up in my head, or just a new line, and no matter what, I have to change the whole story around to try to fit it in. *shrugs* I'm a slave to the ending line.


Uh, if it makes you feel better, lately I've been trying to make fudge from my grandmother's recipe and failing spectacularly. I now feel bad for all the times I made fun of my mother growing up when it took her three times to get a really good batch.

[deird1]

Whee! Someone writes the way I do!

I have to change the whole story around to try to fit it in.

Definitely. Having a line that's so perfect and completely not what you were planning on... it's fun, but really complicated.


Uh, if it makes you feel better, lately I've been trying to make fudge from my grandmother's recipe and failing spectacularly.

Heh. The other day I made caramel slice and had to chuck out all the caramel because it set wrong. My mum makes it looks so easy...

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

I often have a punchline in mind when writing drabbles. Less often with longer fic. Of course, with longer fic, I'm not always sure what's going to happen. Make that usually I'm not sure what's going to happen. Can that be my entry for unaccomplishment? That I've rarely committed plot?

[deird1]

Hee! Absolutely.

(Actually, it's pretty weird how many stories I've written where everyone goes "wow, cool ending, that's really clever the way you set that up", and I didn't set it up at all, because I spent the entire fic not having a clue how it was going to end...)

[snowpuppies]

Yes. Often.

Sometimes an exact line, sometimes just the image I want to portray.

[deird1]

Yay! Someone else who's like me!

*huggles*

[spiralleds.livejournal.com]

I almost always know the emotional arc/concept going into a story, but rarely the specific last words. Occasionally, with drabbles, I know the line I want to end it with, but then I'm usually walking in with an idea of all 100 words.


As for the other, I suppose my single status suggests I have not yet grasped how to meet, flirt with, or date men.

[deird1]

Heh. Me neither, then.


Weirdly, while I often know the last words, I almost never know the emotional arc I'm going to write...

[elisi]

Oh I usually know. If not, it tends to come to me way before I get there. I tend to walk around with whole scenes in my head, which is often awkward since it then takes forever before I get to write them down - on the plus-side I can edit them in my head. *g*

And speaking of un-accomplished then it's the Cherub's birthday tomorrow and we've not yet bought her present. Will that do?

[deird1]

That'll definitely do. :)


I tend to walk around with whole scenes in my head, which is often awkward since it then takes forever before I get to write them down - on the plus-side I can edit them in my head.

I know what you mean. It's really annoying when you know one scene, four scenes in, and you have to write all the other bits before you get there!

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I tend to know the ending, but not the exact last scene, more the big scene I'm building up towards.

And about being non accomplished. I got my driving liscense when I was eighteen and have not driven a car for 5 years, very likely I can't do it anymore.

[deird1]

I tend to know the ending, but not the exact last scene, more the big scene I'm building up towards.

So, sort of half what I'm talking about?


(Do you catch the bus a lot?)

[ruuger]

1. I used to, but these days I usually know what kind of a scene to end the story with rather than a specific line.

2. I took swimming lessons last summer because despite never having lived further than 100 meters from a lake, I have somehow managed to avoid learning to swim. Also, I have been "moving to a bigger place soon" for over five years now (I still live in a one-room apartment in a student house even though I finished my master's degree over three years ago).

[deird1]

1) Ooh. Lucky. I hardly ever actually know the scene.

2) Wow. As an Aussie, the concept of not learning how to swim when you're five is just completely weird for me.

[shapinglight]

I very rarely start a fic if I don't know what the last line's going to be. When I do, I feel very nervous about it. Endings are so tricky.

[deird1]

They really are.

[klme.livejournal.com]

I'd just like to say, completely off either topic, that I am fully in favour of both your icon Deird, and also elisi's

[deird1]

Why, thankyou. I try.

[immer-am-lesen.livejournal.com]

Unaccomplished? As opposed to writers? Gee, thanks...

Things to make you feel better...

...I can't ride a bike. I tried a few years back after a happy childhood of racing around on my bike followed by teenager/young adulthood of not riding again, and couldn't steer around corners.Fail.

...I only learnt how to make a white sauce last year. Before that it was tantrums and hopelessness and getting my husband to do it for me....now that's just sad.

[deird1]

Given that most people are answering both questions, I'd say being a writer and being unaccomplished certainly aren't mutually exclusive...

Making a white sauce is one of the few things I can do in the kitchen. (Mind you, I always get the quantities wrong and end up making the wrong amount.)

So... you'd disagree with the phrase "just like riding a bike - once you learn how you never forget"?

[neutralalienist.livejournal.com]

For short stories, sometimes. The epics with lots of chapters, not so much.

I still fear the stove?

[deird1]

Stoves are great and mighty, and should be feared. Bow before the mighty stove of DOOM!

Funnily enough, the longer a story is, the more I'm likely to know the exact ending. (Mind you, "long" for me is "over two thousand words".)

[next_to_normal]

1. No. I usually know the ending, but rarely the last line. In fact, last lines are something I tend to agonize over (much like titles), because they have to be perfect and so much more meaningful than all the other lines.

2. I never really learned how to ride a bicycle. I got into an accident when I was still learning that left me trapped under a fence (I still have the scars!), and I was less than enthused about bikes after that.

[deird1]

1) Well, your agonising tends to work out pretty well, usually...

2) Eep. I think that'd leave me pretty dubious about bikes too.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

I often know the exact last line. For my Guilt trembling series, I knew exactly how it was going to end and considering I hadn't even finished the first story, that's saying something.

I have no idea how to iron. And I didn't learn to drive until I was 28.

[deird1]

So... lots of catching the bus?

And - yay! Someone else like me!

[brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com]

I try not to know the last line - if I do, I rush towards it too fast. I'm trying ningloreth's recommendation to write mysteries without plotting up until halfway - then look at the mess you have and decide what were clues all along. Work in progress, so I can't report success levels.


I can't drive. Not that unusual for a Londoner, but I did try to learn for many painful years. Also, on DIY, my limit is changing lightbulbs... As long as they're not too high up.

(There's this whole balance/depth perception issue I have which causes both of these problems, but it's not bad enough to merit treatment and just basically makes me look like an incompetent of epic fail.)

[deird1]

Yeah, I have a thing with lightbulb changing. It's so high up, and there's nothing to hold onto up there!


write mysteries without plotting up until halfway - then look at the mess you have and decide what were clues all along.

Oooh... what a fascinating idea...

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I had the epilogue of Return of The Key in my mind from before I started writing the story down - and the same with both the 'repeat' line in the first chapter of Starlight Bathing and the last line of that chapter - which would have stood alone without the other two so almost a last line!

As for the other topic - I didn't learn to drive until I was 30.

[deird1]

You seem to be in good company, driving-wise, going from the other comments...

And wow. Already having the epilogue to that long-as-anything story before you started? Well done!

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

I usually start writing the story when I know the ending. Then, in the middle of the story I realize that the plot goes in a very different direction. Case in point: BMWL, which started as Xander-as-Glory (instead of Ben) idea.

[deird1]

Wow, really? That would have been very different.

[quinara]

I barely ever know the ending when I start writing (heh, looking at other's people's comments I feel a bit silly about that now). It usually becomes apparent as I go along or I'll make a conscious decision to work it out, but I nearly always start in the middle and work outwards. Having said that, I'm really bad at endings, so I wouldn't recommend it as a method.

[deird1]

So... you start writing the middle and then go back and figure out the start? Oooh... how fascinating...

[dipenates.livejournal.com]

I almost always know the emotional arc/concept going into a story, but rarely the specific last words.

This. In fact, I completely suck at endings and rewrite them a million times.

Although I do write and rewrite whole scenes in my head. In fact, I very rarely write things in the order that they ultimately end up in.

[deird1]

Huh. Most of my longer stuff ends up being written in order.

[lavastar.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to get in the habit of outlining my stories before I jump into them, cause I have zillions of half-started fics that just sit around cause I don't know what all this building-up is building up to. So sometimes I figure out the end then, and sometimes that changes anyway. And sometimes I just roll with it.

I get specific lines sometimes, but not really the last one in particular, and not at the beginning. I've gotten titles at the beginning that I then find a way to incorporate into the story, like with Sundays at Nine and to go on.


Oh, ho ho, I have too many tales of how sad I am. Let's see: a lot of them have to do with how overprotective my parents are and aren't really my fault. Like I had a baby monitor in my room until I was like 10. Yeah. There's a reason I'm like this.

Also my parents wouldn't let me use the stove for a loooong time, and then basically never taught me how to use it so cooking and me are kind of fail. Unless it's a simple recipe and doesn't really involve ovens or stoves.

Don't worry, hon, compared to me you probably look like...some really accomplished person. :D

[deird1]

Did you ever try prank-calling them on the baby monitor? :)

I try not to plot too much - because the half-finished stories I've given up on usually have so my plot my story doesn't actually have room to breathe (in a metaphorical way).

[libco.livejournal.com]

I pretty much agree with lavastar on the writing front.
if it makes you feel better I still keep thinking I will find the perfect career. I'm 41.

[deird1]

Oh, ditto. Although I'm still in my twenties. But I'm pretty sure I'll be two years off retirement and still wondering what kind of career I should start aiming for...