When does a writer know exactly where and when the climax of the story is going to occur? You know, the big scene: all the players on stage dancing or sword fighting, Europe in flames, murderer identified, She discovered to be really He, and They to be really siblings, so that Everyone can get married and inherit the fortune together. Or whatever.
At what stage of the writing process can you see the end?
Serious plotters know before they start their first draft. Doesn’t John Irving write his last sentence first? Serious pantsers write a bunch of words and THEN start thinking about the magic potion, or bomb, or wormhole, that will draw the plot threads together.
I’m somewhere in between. I’ve never started a story without some sense of where I want to get. And I’ve never been 100% correct about that. Around the three-quarter mark of the story, the seventh inning, the second last lap (enough sports metaphors. Around Calgary in my cross-country trip), a light bulb goes off in my head. A voice whispers. An arrow points.
It’s a key moment in the writing process. Every time it happens, I feel positive, energized. I know how to time my pitching change or finishing kick. I know when to get gas.
What I’m saying is that I think – I hope – that I now know where Belongingness is going to end. I have a sense of the big scene. Woo hoo!
The scene will take place next Saturday. That's in five days. I'm pretty sure we can include every important character (except Mom, who is in prison. Oh well.)
I am, in a qualified way, pleased. Qualified, because I have not confirmed my brand new, just this moment, revelation with Melanie.
She may disagree. In which case … Wormhole?
Sure. Cody and Autumn can complete their story in the past, or the future, or the Twylon 4 galaxy.