Posted 06 Jul 2016 editing
As I write this, I have submitted my current MS to my editor for review for a second time. He said he planned to read it today, but if he’s emailed me back about it, I don’t know it yet. As part of the version of this MS that I sent to him, a major area he identified as needing help was the resolution. Beyond where the shit hit the fan and painted the wall on the other side. Where the characters have to look at it and decide if it’s art or if the house ought to be burned to the ground. He pointed out that I set up a lot of plans, practically a to-do list, of things that my main characters would do next. While I don’t plan to include those particular steps in the body of the next story, it was a fair point. I didn’t need to make plans for my characters to prove that their lives didn’t evaporate after the last period of the novel. I also was moving them too purposefully toward something that the reader might feel OUGHT to come next. So then the book ends, and the experience wasn’t satisfying. We didn’t reflect on what happened in the previous scenes. We were plowing right ahead with the rest of their lives. Big things happen at the end of the book. The characters need to look back and let the adrenaline fade and the shakes course through them. Then breathe, and see what limbs are still attached (figuratively and, in a couple cases, literally). I’m not sure if I achieved a better resolution this time. I focused on some points that my editor gave me, but whether or not the last sentence feels right is what I worry about. To me, I dunno if I think it does. But that’s why I sought help for this. I don’t have an awful lot of confidence (or really, any) when it comes to wrapping up a story. I have been disappointed by so many of them, that I’ve come to see it as an insurmountable feat, to deliver an ending that doesn’t cut the reader short mid-stride, and that keeps that world breathing inside their head for as long as it can before life drowns out the awe. Really, though, I think it must be as fundamental as the construction of the rest of the plot. Watch the pacing. Wrap up questions, but don’t make it too pat. Satisfy the needs of the story. But it’s the righthand bookend of a matched set. Story opening, and its curtain fall. Both sides, with a higher potential than the rest of the book to have the words savored and possibly memorized. The pressure is on for the writer to prove herself a poet of grace, wit, or both. And so they are written most self-consciously. Normally I can just WRITE THE THING and be satisfied to move on. But it’s the end. You can’t move on from the end. These are the words on the gravestone of my story. I cannot take them lightly. They must do justice to everything that came before. And like trying to actually pay attention to putting your pants on, suddenly coordination and grace is gone, and I fall forward and have to lean on the sink, or at least hopefully not hit my head on its porcelain edge. Only I’m blindfolded and someone tied my hands behind my back. It’s a struggle to write it, and then I am incapable of judging the quality afterward. The best thing I’ve ever done for the ending of my story, is ask for help. So when I finish this post, I’ll check my email and see if I got a Caesaresque thumbs up or down. Until then, I’m going to pause and reflect and check my own limbs to see what survived after all the heart-agonizing editing I have done over the past week.Next Snippet: Three Feet From Shore