I'm with you, Christina. I like an HEA, so I'm often working toward that, but most of the time it is the goals that tear me up, and doing the right backstory without any data dumping. I usually know a lot of the reasons for the conflict, but as i figure out the goals and motivation, the ending will change.

denise

Yes, hope, and a reason to hope, are powerful and uplifting when paired with a positive arc!

I think you end up being a bit of each - but your personal writing style decides which you use first, and how you bring in the second. It's not JUST about what you will find when you get there, but also about what you will find getting there.

I have literally set out on my journey with a roadmap (that's what I call the file that has the marks to hit). But I look out the window all the way.

So beautifully put! From what you write, it's in the HOW that the discovery happens ...I remember when I used to teach research and always began the course with the comparison between a miner and a traveler. I miner knows what he's looking for, though not exactly where he will find t; while a traveler knows where he's gong, but not what he might find along the way!

I'm an extreme plotter, and know all the marks that have to be hit, solidly, or the whole thing won't work. That comes with a lot of detail about the 5 Ws (who, why, what, when, and where), but the writing has been fascinating because I had no clue about HOW, and still don't when I start a new scene.

Each scene (I write only in finished scenes) comes with a lot of baggage that somehow has to be dealt with, included, connected, added to... and a specific goal. Each has a main purpose (why is this scene here) and a whole host of potentials.

And then I write it, and feel like I'm doing archaeology, and that now I know the details of how when I finish, but they were there all along, somehow implied in the whole. As each scene is forged, I find how it belongs to the hoped-for completed story.

The process has been discovery, not creation. As if I had designed a necklace - books are linear, in that they are normally read one word at a time in sequence - and I'm polishing each gemstone as I get to it, but the story's balance and symmetry and asymmetries won't be evident until the last stone is in place. Or a tapestry, woven from a cast-on beginning to a chosen end, which won't show all the colors and the balance until the last thread is tied off.

Yes, we have much the same approach! Personally, I like endings that show an internal change but leave its external consequences a bit open. For example, if the character finds a new sense of self (as my protagonists tend to), I like to leave them "on the threshold," as it were, about to step into a new life whose details we don't yet know ... and that (to me) is very positive and hopeful, but leaves room for the unknown 🙂

I always know the spirit of the ending, but not necessarily the details, though that varies from story to story. Whenever I've tried to stubbornly cling to the exact details of my initial vision I've ended up changing it when I revised. In fact, the ending that occurs after one revision is typically the one that endures. It's in the reading of the story much later that it becomes a map, the patterns pointing me towards the ending that fits. I've learned to trust that.

I don't write endings that are too neat, nor are they 100% happy. I'd more call them positive endings where threads are tied, but the knots vary, some tighter than others, some suggesting they could unravel. That's what I, Christina Hawthorne, enjoy as a reader. Life experiences have molded me that way. As a writer, I can admire and appreciate most endings, and are glad to praise the novel, but if the writer leaves me in a melancholy state (or worse) I'll avoid reading their work thereafter.