Know Your Ending

It’s interesting the sheer diversity of people thrown together for a certain period of time on a train, so many lives all briefly travelling in the same direction. One of them is a hopeful screenwriter with whom I’ve conversed extensively about the struggles and triumphs of pursuing creative writing. The best advice he’s given me, among many other nuggets of wisdom, is to “Know Your Ending”.

By this, he means a story must accomplish something by the end of it.  Once you know what your goal is and how the ending will achieve it, then the story will have a clear direction, a sense of focus. That’s not to say the ending is rigid, that it must be achieved no matter what. It’s possible it may change during the course of writing. However, without any knowledge of any ending, it’s highly likely the story will go nowhere and everywhere and end up rather pointless, more of a writing exercise than a cohesive story.

As you can see, this bit of advice is not only applicable to writing, it has parallels to our own personal lives. Instead of drifting from day-to-day stuck in a routine we have no clear reason to be in, wouldn’t it be interesting to pursue an intentional life? With only one life, I’d hate to have it end up being some kind of exercise or practice session. I’d like to choose the purpose of my life and how I want the ending to achieve the culmination of that purpose. This gives me a directionality I can deliberately pursue. And even if the end-goal changes, that’s ok, because my purpose remains the same, and I can fly ahead full steam.

I didn’t intend to write so much of my personal philosophy, as this is a blog based around my thoughts regarding writing. But, I suppose, it brings the point home: Know Your Ending. It makes everything flow so much easier.