endings | endings
May.31.2013
Endit.
I typed this happily last week, on two different manuscripts. One is Cold Spell, a book that over the past three years has shape-shifted from the story of a woman who searches for her missing mother to the story of a woman who’s obsessed with a glacier. The other...
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May.22.2013
Lately I've been watching a number of movies with endings that do not quite satisfy. These are all award-winning films, and I guess their way of ending adds to their uniqueness. The films are indeed admirable in most aspects. But the endings grate just a little on my nerves.
First there is the...
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May.04.2013
I'm back at the Beanery. My favorite period of time has commenced again, the writing day, where I sit, focused on the pleasure of writing and editing my fiction, drinking my coffee, watching the world and wondering what I'm going to eat.
I always seem to be wondering what I'm going to eat....
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Feb.08.2013
Last week, I went to three major social events in five days. That's highly unusual for a hermit who spends all day thinking about nothing but kanji and who generally likes it that way!
By the way, "hermit" is one meaning of 仙, the kanji of the week. Here's a preview of the new essay...
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Sep.13.2012
When I was a kid, there was a riddle that asked why when you’re looking for something, is it always in the last place you look? Because once you find it, you stop looking. When you’re crafting a mystery, the last thing that happens is the mystery is...
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Feb.25.2012
When Jeannette loves a novel, she needs to know how it ends in order to enjoy it properly without rushing to reach the denouement. I find this faintly irritating. That’s sort of the point of having a plot, isn’t it? It’s a mechanism to keep the pages turning. Worse, if I’ve read the book in...
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Dec.01.2011
Generally I agree with John Gardner's assessment in The Art of Fiction about how stories can end: "...can end in only one of two ways: in resolution, when no further event can take place (the murderer has been caught and hanged, the diamond has been found and restored to its owner, the elusive...
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Nov.03.2011
Not that I know how it is going to end. Or how much writing is left before the end is reached (probably 2-3 weeks). But it is time to take note of everything my characters do. Put some pre-cursors into their dialogue. Make sure all the plot points of the chapter are aiming in the same...
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Oct.15.2011
I gotta say, I don't have this problem. A novel starts heading for its immediate end long before the time comes. It nudges with 100 pages left. It koffs at half that space. The characters start making their preparations at about this time. They will even indicate if...
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Oct.11.2011
Sometimes when things come to an end, we feel more than slightly lost. When a relationship, friendship or job ends it could seem to crash our world. Our blood, sweat, tears, hopes and often life-long dreams seemed to be shattered. Other times the endings are not so serious and yet they tug at...
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