31–40 of 49 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>In Stephen King's case, I'd say "no". Haha! I his case I don't think he has anything figured out. I think as he's writing it, he's discovering what the characters are doing and is in just as much shock as we are.
> I think as he's writing it Or, as the case of Cujo, when he's reading it for the first time
I'm curious to know if authors of great books know the "ending" ahead of time? In Stephen King's case, I'd say "no". In John Irving's case, where the ending is often "put the book down in awe", I'd assume he MUST, right? I'd love to write a book, I have ideas, I just don't know if I'll ever have a good ending. This must be the curse of most aspiring writers!?
Other writers can't write that way. They produce outlines so detailed that the actual writing is embellishment. Sometimes these writers are the opposite of writers like King...they start with the ending they want, and create a story that leads there.
I'm curious to know if authors of great books know the "ending" ahead of time? In Stephen King's case, I'd say "no". In John Irving's case, where the ending is often "put the book down in awe", I'd assume he MUST, right? I'd love to write a book, I have ideas, I just don't know if I'll ever have a good ending. This must be the curse of most aspiring writers!?
A favorite anecdote, and I don't know anything, I could have misheard it, was about Tolkien. Apparently, he did not know the character Saruman existed. He was just working the story, and had this gap which eventually turned into Saruman. Saruman seems rather "important", so it's interesting (to me) that it was not a core character from early on. As a non-writer, even as a programmer, I find it kind of surprising that…
I'm curious to know if authors of great books know the "ending" ahead of time? In Stephen King's case, I'd say "no". In John Irving's case, where the ending is often "put the book down in awe", I'd assume he MUST, right? I'd love to write a book, I have ideas, I just don't know if I'll ever have a good ending. This must be the curse of most aspiring writers!?
I imagine writing a book where you know the ending (not just the final scene, but the whole complete solution to the plot) beforehand is so boring, it would make writing the damn thing impossible. I mean at that point it's pretty much a coloring book. You came up with the shapes, for sure, but still. source - have written long-form fiction
Im not sure I get what a snowflake represents. Is each corner a detail in the story? Also, will this not just end up with a story that is without a clear red thread, seems like quite a disjointed way of writing.
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From my experience, you don’t need to know the exact ending but you should have a general idea of where stuff needs to go. Knowing the end state makes planning the events and character development easier, and can help you avoid pacing problems. You can create the structure working backwards from the end state. When I write I usually think about what needs to happen to get everything to where it “needs to be” in a com…
> makes planning the events and character development easier My impression is that it makes the former easier and the latter harder. Having a planned-out plot-focused story can lead you to a very tight, satisfying climax. But it can often make the characters feel wooden or like they are acting out of character in order to do what the plot needs them to do. When a writer focuses more on the fidelity of a character's i…
Part 1 of Dostoevsky's The Idiot is maybe the best example I know that works from both perspectives. It's full of interesting characters with different motives, and it escalates to a incredible firework involving all these characters and motives all acting at the same time.
The ending of The Great Gatsby is also like that. A big tragic thing happens, but not because of some evil dragon - it happens because the characters are what they are.
And then you have something like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or On the Road, or Breakfast at Tiffany's. Where things happen because the characters are basically chaotic assholes, the kind of people to whom things happen and you want to read about these things.
I'm curious to know if authors of great books know the "ending" ahead of time? In Stephen King's case, I'd say "no". In John Irving's case, where the ending is often "put the book down in awe", I'd assume he MUST, right? I'd love to write a book, I have ideas, I just don't know if I'll ever have a good ending. This must be the curse of most aspiring writers!?
https://www.backwordsblog.com/single-post/2016/04/27/john-ir...
"People have commented – sometimes with irritation, sometimes nicely – on the amount of foreshadow that there is in my novel. Well, yeah, it’s not that hard to foreshadow what’s coming when you know what’s coming…I write endings first. I write last sentences – sometimes last paragraphs – first. I know where I am going. I write collision course stories."