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.)

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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

[deird1]

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

[quinara]

Well, sometimes I start at the beginning, especially if the fic doesn't have that many scenes, but I usually won't have decided that's the beginning yet and tend to end up changing it in one way or another. I mean, if I'm writing post-NFA or something, I often won't have worked out the specifics of the world I'm in until I've done a couple of scenes, so I can't write the beginning because I don't know what the audience needs to be aware of. (By the end I will usually know far more than the reader can find out without scrutinising every word people say, but that's another story...) But then I'm a ridiculously slow writer sometimes, in that bits of stories will sit on my computer for ages before getting turned into something else - I think my seasonal_spuffy story for this round is something of a personal record, because its first incarnation is over two years old now!