How did you feel at the end of your first story?

Today I completed my first story. I started it in 2023 and now it is done.

And safe to say, I feel weird. Sad, happy, sad, happy. Mix of other things but they really fall into those two groups.

It was a great journey with many ups and downs.

I'm content with what I made. I don't feel like trying to improve or rewrite it at the moment. There are so many issues with it, but I'm finished up my re-read now, and I happy to see how far I've come as writer. Cause wow, I was shit .

...At this point I am just rambling. So yeah, question of the thread, 'How did you feel at the end of your first story?'

I finished my story a few years back and I felt satisfied, with a hint of pride. Cuz I did it, I wrote my own story!


So now I'm rewriting it here cuz I felt it needed one. I'm more proud of it, but act 1 needs some adjustments. I guess the first act is tricky for me cx but when I finish this, I'm moving on to the sequel!

Happy

I finished mine a few days ago. Very happy. On to the next!

When I completed this, i felt like i had left my mark on the world, but i also knew i couldn't just stop here, so i decided to expand the series.

I felt proud that I finished it. I never want to be the kind of writer who has a dozen half finished stories so I kept going till it was done.

There is sometimes a melancholic feeling that it's over. So I usually just continue the story in another book. Lol.

Strange. The only story I've 'finished', in the 'no sequels, no prequels, this is a completed stand alone' was both a bittersweet ending and one of the hardest things I'd written to that point; it's got some serious darkness to it.

I was proud, exhausted, and a little bit scared that I'd screwed it up, really.

No comment (well, it's a comment). My fictions are still ongoing...

first book project, a long time ago.
----------------------------------------------------
what today would be fanfic, wasn't called that back then.
author of a series died, I thought I knew what his ending "should be".
some individual chapters were pretty cool, but overall I was a noob.
MC was sort of okay, but it could get really cheesy in places.
cardboard cutout characters, dialogue issues.
what I now know to call "sprawl" and "meandering" all through the middle.
I finished it, but it just didn't "soar".
can't do anything with it anyways, and it had a lot of noob issues.
but the good parts, the good chapters.
those? I knew I could *write*, damn it.

over some years, I started and never finished two more novel projects.
I would put writing away then come back to it, like other big hobbies I have.

this last time, after a long break.
I was off for the winter. money was tight. nothing to do.
didn't even have internet.
started little writing things, nothing I could finish or like.
finally?
I liked one.
I finished it.

I kept at it ever since. Now? I finish anything I start.
i've learned a lot over several finished projects.
its a bear to keep going back over and editing finished things.
I do that periodically between writing, to apply what I do editing NOW as compared to how I did it then.

I feel like I'm a lot closer to where I need to be, though not "there" yet.
is "there" just up around the bend?
maybe the next thing I learn, is the last thing to set me on my path.
or are there a couple or even several more bends to come around.

I don't know. I can't know.

what I do know, is that I'm far enough along that I'm going to find out.

Happy that I completed it.
Anxious how others feel about it.

I used to write short stories in 5th grade, and everytime i would finish it kind of felt like a part of me had died. There was no more story. The characters were done. Their fictional life wouldn't be carried on. And up until now, I haven't written a single story since unless it was for an assignment.

I wasn't very happy with the ending but happy I finally completed a web serial.

Bobple said:

Today I completed my first story. I started it in 2023 and now it is done.

And safe to say, I feel weird. Sad, happy, sad, happy. Mix of other things but they really fall into those two groups.

It was a great journey with many ups and downs.

I'm content with what I made. I don't feel like trying to improve or rewrite it at the moment. There are so many issues with it, but I'm finished up my re-read now, and I happy to see how far I've come as writer. Cause wow, I was shit .

...At this point I am just rambling. So yeah, question of the thread, 'How did you feel at the end of your first story?'

Click to expand...

Contented and accomplished, though the happy feeling didn't last long as the realization that I'm not fit to be an author set in.

Hans.Trondheim said:

Contented and accomplished, though the happy feeling didn't last long as the realization that I'm not fit to be an author set in.

Click to expand...

Classics like to say, "Anyone can become a writer." Have you chosen the wrong path?

Bobple said:

'How did you feel at the end of your first story?'

Click to expand...

my story is not over. But with those little in-between endings, I have different feelings. Sometimes I feel disappointed that the other option didn't work out. Sometimes I feel excited about something I've been wanting to write for a long time.

Define "end"... probably haven't reached one yet... Well, except for the one I wrote when I was in my early 20s.

Way back when I finished my first story, I was happy to move on to the next one. I tend to think of longer, slower plotlines that take a lot of investment to see them through. I also end up thinking of many, many more stories in the middle of writing one. I have enough restraint to not drop everything and scurry on over to the next idea as soon as the whim hits me, but I do want to actually see more characters' stories through.

My first story was done over a month ago. It has an ending. On one hand I was happy and felt fullfilled, on the other hand - is it really over? Is it done? Somehow I couldn´t let go. I started to work on some character visualisations, but even so, or because of that the Fangs are still squatting in my noggin rent free and so I started to put together thoughts for a sequel. (the ending does allow one)

Finishing a novel is supposed to bring relief — that’s what people say. You imagine that once you write “The End,” you’ll finally be able to step away, close the door, and breathe. But instead, I found myself circling back to the chapters again and again, unable to stop revisiting the moments that had carried me this far. It felt less like completing a manuscript and more like watching a child grow up. You know, in some rational corner of yourself, that you have to let them go — that they’re ready to walk into the world without you. And yet your heart lingers, unwilling to release what it has held so closely. And I’m not surprised, really, because so many fellow novelists have confessed to feeling the same: that strange ache at the end, that reluctance to loosen your grip. The story is finished, yes, but the ache comes from realising that a part of you will always want to walk beside it just a little longer.