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 Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2010 8:30 am
I'm doing this fic The Future Child on Meet The Robbinsons, and its doing fairly well for a small fandom. I'm literally down to the last three chapters, which will be used to write the big finale...but I can't seem to get my heart into it.
What I usually use to motivate myself to write is to focus on key moments that I really want to get across: a hospital on fire, a boy scratching into his own face, a dance of frogs. But, I've already used all of the moments that were motivating me forward, and now I'm afraid that if I push the ending out, its going to be dry and textbook, which is so not what my readers deserve.
So, with my special moments all used up, does anyone have any tricks to get themselves re-excited in their own fics?
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Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2010 10:09 pm
If I've lost the motivation to continue a story so close to the end, I like to evaluate what is actually making me loose the will to finish.
1) Is is because the story is already finished in my head and so writing out the ending seems redundant?
2) Is it because I don't really like the way I plan to end the story and I don't want to set that particular ending in stone?
3) Is it because I can't think of any other way to make the story continue, and so want to make an effort to tie the ends together, but it seems too daunting?
4) Is it because I don't want the story to end, so I keep procrastinating writing the actual ending?
You may think of others, some more relevant to your situation and others less, but let me share my insight on these four reasons for now.
The first is the toughest in my opinion, because it's basically a mind battle to convince yourself that the readers still are left hanging, even if you know how it ends. The only thought that keeps me driving during these periods is the fact that writing out the whole thing leads to certain changes in the plan that I probably hadn't thought about before.
For the second I would say to go ahead and take some time out and improve your ending plan until it reaches your personal satisfaction level. You won't want to write something that is not pleasing first to you. That takes the fun out of writing, something that usually causes the story to get avoided, especially if you're trying to have good quality writing for fun like most fanfiction.
The advice I have for the third scenario is to make a list of all the little ends that you have to bring together; one big list of all the things that got foreshadowed, hinted about, or planned throughout the story. If the list is more than about half a page, you probably aren't ready to end the story in a three chapter finale, but are more likely to need some good falling action instead. In either case, think of the characters needed for the scenes to wrap up certain portions of the storyline and how your characters can be persuaded into wrapping them up.
For the last, the only advice I can give is that every story deserves an ending as good as the middle and beginning. You can always reread a work that you are proud of, and revisit your storyline and plot and characters. So sit down with your writing medium, and some motivational cookies/cake/pie/yogurt/cheese/cupcakes/etc. Reward yourself for actually writing and notable progress made on ending your story.
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Matelia legwll Vice Captain
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