This is not my profound advice on endings but a lament on not landing mine -yet. I am perfectionist and tend to rewrite as I write going against the write now, edit later mantra. This is also why I am so slow at finishing because I can't continue until I know something is just right.
So I find myself 248 pages into my novel, the resolution sliding down from the climax into some sort of wrap up to lose ends with the characters no longer talking to me. I have begged and pleaded with them giving them words that they instantly reject and scorn. But still staying silent as how they want to proceed.
Part of it stems from a heavy dislike of too perfectly tied endings. Life is messy and not all resolutions are clear cut or even resolved. I don't want to annoy my readers but also want to stay true to the story. So how pissed off is my male protagonist at the end. He's a nice guy, the proverbial white knight, but would he forgive and move on that fast. I can't make him tell me yet.
I also think there is a fear sitting like a quiet whisper in the back of my head telling me that its almost over and then the hard part comes: sending it out into to the universe to be read and devoured and criticized by others.
I don't have any easy answer. I just sit myself at my computer day after day, coffee and chocolate on hand, as I keep to my writing schedule writing alternate versions till the right one tells me its the one.
I just hope the end is in sight, the one that finally caps all this work and effort sealing my characters fates and mine.
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