Need to know the ending before you start?
This writer says NO.
I always marvelled at writers who had their whole plots mapped out. Each chapter detailed on index cards that could be moved around if continuity required. I do believe that for certain types of projects—like mystery novels—you have to know whodunnit so that you can build the right amount of suspense, pace the discoveries correctly, etc.
I tried. I truly did. But I have never known the end before I began. And when I figured out that I was using this not-knowing as an excuse not to get started, I stopped trying to adopt another’s process.
In finding my way forward, I learned a few things about my own process.
I start with a voice and around that voice, a personality builds, each new word and thought helping me discover who this voice belongs to.
This first voice is joined by other voices and the meeting of their personalities create situations.
More voices and more situations appear over the course of time, revealing the plot quite naturally. Overheard conversations and personal memories, mix with ideas heard on podcasts and reflections on people I once knew. There is a funnel effect, all of this information flows onto the page.
When I get stuck, I ask myself, “what happens when X, who is extremely stubborn, is confronted with problem y?” or “will X perform according to her usual script, or will she choose differently today?”
The answers always come. Even if I have to walk around all day and stare at all the things, the answers always come.
I have never had to trust myself so wholly before, but I do. I trust that the ending, when it appears, will be relevant and poignant and consistent with all that has come before.
The most important thing about writing is to get started. Once you have words on the page, you can rework and even backwards engineer plot to better ramp up to the ending. But if you don’t have words on the page, you don’t get to the end.