One note and a writing thing

[mer]

Finished my "short" story tonight. At 14,100, it's overlong. I will cut 3-4k.

The problem is, it doesn't want to end. It's like the last twenty minutes of The Return of the King: denouement, denouement, denouement. No! Wait! One more. De---nouement. And oh, also, denouement.

Okay, sage advice time: what do you do when you can't find the right note to end on? How do you force the ending, whilst keeping it satisfying?

Comments

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I compromise for the first draft, ask the critiquers, threaten the story, and then fix it on the second. :p

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Yeah, okay... see my comment to Sherwood. :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_earthshine_/]

what do you do when you can't find the right note to end on? How do you force the ending, whilst keeping it satisfying?

What's the writing equivalent of a studio fade?

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Uhm... Good question!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

With the everybody is different caveat, when I can't get an ending, I figure I'm too close, and so not seeing the shape of the forest. The trees are surrounding me. I need to get away entirely for a time, and then revisit. When I see the shape, the ending usually comes.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Alas, I *was indeed* afraid that the answer was time and distance. ;)

[steve-buchheit.livejournal.com]

"And then the velicoraptors ate them all. The end."

Easy as pie.