Need writing advice.

[Senx1l]

I just started writing my own story a few days ago and something I’ve realized is, I don’t know what the end goal is. Like where do I want the story to end at or where do I want it to go. I have the general idea but again I’m just not for sure. My question to other writers out there is do you make a story with the end goal in mind or as you write it you come up with it? If your answer is the second question how do you figure it out?

 

[EphemeralEmperor]

What you are referring to involves pantsing vs plotting. To be brief, pantsing is where you largely make up a story as it goes and plotting is where you define all the details before writing. People differ on how they write, I'm mostly a pantser myself. As for end goals, that's up to you. If you want an end to your story you can. But you don't need one.

Think of television for example. Some shows have a defined finale. And then there's Spongebob. No "real" ending, but a few are suggested as endings, but it still keeps going right?

So if you aren't sure, and you can't decide, just flip a coin. Heads it has an ending you decide, tails you write it so its like spongebob and never ends.

As long as its fun to read people will gather. Just remember that.

FOR MY STORY:

I came up with the ending because it fits the subgenre I write to; usually in the xuanhuan esque field the MC becomes a god like character so I didn't have to come up with a lot for an ending. Just the general sequence leading to that point. I do write as I go the parts in between (pantsing you know), but the main steps are already laid out. You figure out how much detail you want for your story, not just the end, by thinking about what kind of story you want to write. Not just genre, but what would make you feel satisfied if you suddenly couldn't write that story anymore. Think hiatus, health, or something keeps you from writing. Would you be ok if you were able to end it at a predefined end you thought of? Or would you feel like your writing is half-assed if you didn't have a defined ending? At the end of the day its not something that can be tested, the author decides it. The readers will come if they like it.

Good luck with writing. don't sweat the small details as you work on it.

 

[Senx1l]

What you are referring to involves pantsing vs plotting. To be brief, pantsing is where you largely make up a story as it goes and plotting is where you define all the details before writing. People differ on how they write, I'm mostly a pantser myself. As for end goals, that's up to you. If you want an end to your story you can. But you don't need one.

Think of television for example. Some shows have a defined finale. And then there's Spongebob. No "real" ending, but a few are suggested as endings, but it still keeps going right?

So if you aren't sure, and you can't decide, just flip a coin. Heads it has an ending you decide, tails you write it so its like spongebob and never ends.

As long as its fun to read people will gather. Just remember that.

FOR MY STORY:

I came up with the ending because it fits the subgenre I write to; usually in the xuanhuan esque field the MC becomes a god like character so I didn't have to come up with a lot for an ending. Just the general sequence leading to that point. I do write as I go the parts in between (pantsing you know), but the main steps are already laid out. You figure out how much detail you want for your story, not just the end, by thinking about what kind of story you want to write. Not just genre, but what would make you feel satisfied if you suddenly couldn't write that story anymore. Think hiatus, health, or something keeps you from writing. Would you be ok if you were able to end it at a predefined end you thought of? Or would you feel like your writing is half-assed if you didn't have a defined ending? At the end of the day its not something that can be tested, the author decides it. The readers will come if they like it.

Good luck with writing. don't sweat the small details as you work on it.

I want to thank you for this. This actually helped a lot. Why the keeping my story continuously going bit won’t rlly work for me is how I set my story up. If u don’t mind me ranting a tid bit.

my story is told from the pov of a girl who died (due to her own actions) and was reincarnated into another world, this world specifically being a medieval omegaverse one (weird for a first story but aye). She’s a noble, specifically a royal one. So politics, drama, and angst is rlly in play for this story. To keep it short this story HAS to have an end goal. Why? For my sanity and to atleast give myself brownie points for making a story and completing it.

To also speak on your part about whether I got sick or just couldn’t continue the story. Tbh I’m pretty sure I’d figure it out along the way but as my story gets moving I will for sure make the ending as open as possible or at least try to. Hope this made sense sometimes I ramble a little bit and lose my original point -_-

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I just started writing my own story a few days ago and something I’ve realized is, I don’t know what the end goal is. Like where do I want the story to end at or where do I want it to go. I have the general idea but again I’m just not for sure. My question to other writers out there is do you make a story with the end goal in mind or as you write it you come up with it? If your answer is the second question how do you figure it out?

Heh - this is my SOP - have a vague end goal in place, a bunch of scenes to get there, and then figure out the rest on the way (I thought this was a "character flaw" until I read the introduction to the collected X-Men/Teen Titans crossover comic and found out that was how Chris Claremont and John Byrne always worked, and kind of drove plotter Marv Wolfman crazy; IIRC George Perez tried to be a plotter but frequently sketched multiple takes on scenes and did a lot of revision with the writers before the final pages went for inks and letters).

Case in point:

• Between Worlds is meant to be the first book in a trilogy (probably - may only be two, may stretch to four) with a clear endgame only for the ... ah... second book, really (which also has the first chapter written ... even though there are about 40 more chapters to go in book one before I get there, maybe more).
• Strange Awakening is meant to be ongoing - only came up with the ending of book one at about chapter 10.
• Jack Diamond is meant to be five or more short books with discreet arcs in each and an overall story.
• True Blue is a collection of short stories with a framing story - only have the ends of two stories (one that is finished, one not even started) really worked out there.
• Digital Cowboy has an amorphous endgame planned, but I keep coming up with side stories and new details to add as I go along.

 

[Senx1l]

Heh - this is my SOP - have a vague end goal in place, a bunch of scenes to get there, and then figure out the rest on the way (I thought this was a "character flaw" until I read the introduction to the collected X-Men/Teen Titans crossover comic and found out that was how Chris Claremont and John Byrne always worked, and kind of drove plotter Marv Wolfman crazy; IIRC George Perez tried to be a plotter but frequently sketched multiple takes on scenes and did a lot of revision with the writers before the final pages went for inks and letters).

Case in point:

• Between Worlds is meant to be the first book in a trilogy (probably - may only be two, may stretch to four) with a clear endgame only for the ... ah... second book, really (which also has the first chapter written ... even though there are about 40 more chapters to go in book one before I get there, maybe more).
• Strange Awakening is meant to be ongoing - only came up with the ending of book one at about chapter 10.
• Jack Diamond is meant to be five or more short books with discreet arcs in each and an overall story.
• True Blue is a collection of short stories with a framing story - only have the ends of two stories (one that is finished, one not even started) really worked out there.
• Digital Cowboy has an amorphous endgame planned, but I keep coming up with side stories and new details to add as I go along.

I like the sound of having a vague ending in mind. I could just pull an Akame Ga Kill and kill off my main character(s) then end the story. I’m just indecisive tbh. I’ll check these stories out though and see if I can learn something from them aside from the vague summaries you already gave me. Thank you :)!

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I like the sound of having a vague ending in mind. I could just pull an Akame Ga Kill and kill off my main character(s) then end the story. I’m just indecisive tbh. I’ll check these stories out though and see if I can learn something from them aside from the vague summaries you already gave me. Thank you :)!

Digital Cowboy only has about 15 chapters here - it hit 60 on PocketFM today. It's an Isekai/Western/System/Grab bag series
Between Worlds is a mix of high and urban fantasy (high fantasy on another world, urban on modern Earth)
The others are basically superhero stories, though Jack Diamond is a pulp-era detective in a mostly modern world (with magic and superheroes.

 

[Corty]

https://forum.scribblehub.com/threads/tutorial-for-new-users-of-scribble-hub.13141/

Section-C at the end collects most if not all Writing Tutorials posted on this forum.

 

[Senx1l]

https://forum.scribblehub.com/threads/tutorial-for-new-users-of-scribble-hub.13141/

Section-C at the end collects most if not all Writing Tutorials posted on this forum.

Thank you !!

 

[Arkus86]

I would say it depends on what you want from your story. If you want a serial/episodic story that you can pick up or drop anytime (Friends, Spongebob... something with a loose background plot/overarching setting tying it all together, but each episode about something else), making it up as you go is fine. But if you want a proper long-term plot and/or clear ending, then you need to have at least some idea where you are going with it. From my experience, everyone who does not, inevitably burns out and leaves their story unfinished. Not to mention you can often just feel the lack of direction from their writing as you read.

 

[Senx1l]

I would say it depends on what you want from your story. If you want a serial/episodic story that you can pick up or drop anytime (Friends, Spongebob... something with a loose background plot/overarching setting tying it all together, but each episode about something else), making it up as you go is fine. But if you want a proper long-term plot and/or clear ending, then you need to have at least some idea where you are going with it. From my experience, everyone who does not, inevitably burns out and leaves their story unfinished. Not to mention you can often just feel the lack of direction from their writing as you read.

That’s completely a fair point (the burn out one). One thing I’ve been doing that I think has fairly helped me is just writing what I can at my own pace. I don’t force myself to write or make it a thing to where I have to.

Right now I’m at a place where I do worry if I don’t have an end goal my story is just going to lose its direction. I want a story that not at the beginning has its goal but as the story goes on the goal slowly shows itself. I just figured this out from the other individuals reply ;)

My story is still fairly new (7 chapters) so perhaps I’m worrying myself for no reason. I’ve just seen too many authors I'm familiar with losing their point or not even having one as their stories progresses. Me? I don’t wanna have that issue which is why I reached out for advice lol. I will definitely keep this in mind before my story advances more, plot wise.

If you do have anytime on your hands would you be willing to give my story a glance? I do want a bit of feedback to make sure I’m at least starting it decently.

 

[Vaay]

Hi, Im an author. It's always good to have a general picture of how you want the story to end before you create it. Also, it's good to create a structure of the story arc before you write!

 

[AmbreaTaddy]

I just started writing my own story a few days ago and something I’ve realized is, I don’t know what the end goal is. Like where do I want the story to end at or where do I want it to go. I have the general idea but again I’m just not for sure. My question to other writers out there is do you make a story with the end goal in mind or as you write it you come up with it? If your answer is the second question how do you figure it out?

Personnally, I do both. I either make a plan that looks like this :

- X lives in A town
- Thing terrible happen, X needs to leave
- X arrives in B town, he meets Y
- Y teaches him how to fish
- X travels the world to fish with Y
- X and Y get married

It's just a basic skeleton of the vital points of my story, so that I don't stray from the path.

Or sometimes I just wing it, I start the story knowing the direction I want to take it to, but the middle is a free for all, I let my characters decide what to do.

Writing is like being a dungeon master, and your characters are the guys in your party that never follow your plans so you need to adapt to create an interesting story for them

 

[Arkus86]

That’s completely a fair point (the burn out one). One thing I’ve been doing that I think has fairly helped me is just writing what I can at my own pace. I don’t force myself to write or make it a thing to where I have to.

Right now I’m at a place where I do worry if I don’t have an end goal my story is just going to lose its direction. I want a story that not at the beginning has its goal but as the story goes on the goal slowly shows itself. I just figured this out from the other individuals reply ;)

My story is still fairly new (7 chapters) so perhaps I’m worrying myself for no reason. I’ve just seen too many authors I'm familiar with losing their point or not even having one as their stories progresses. Me? I don’t wanna have that issue which is why I reached out for advice lol. I will definitely keep this in mind before my story advances more, plot wise.

If you do have anytime on your hands would you be willing to give my story a glance? I do want a bit of feedback to make sure I’m at least starting it decently.

It looks like a promising read so far. Minor grammar issues, punctuation could be improved, and I think I saw some misplaced and repeated words, but I have not spotted any major issues.

If I were to point out something, it's mostly the last time skip. It's sudden, practically without any acknowledgment of the passing time or build-up to it, with one scene ending and immediately it's one month later. Another thing would be, see if you can write paragraphs longer than one or two lines. For example, much of Aerea’s POV in the last chapter could be condensed into bigger chunks, which could help with the [visual] flow. But do what suits you.

 

[LeilaniOtter]

For most of the stories I've written, either personal or commissioned, I actually think about how it's going to end first - then outline backwards from there. This is common for me especially for mystery and horror stories. I want to give the readers a big pay-off, so I plan the ending in advance. *^^*

 

[Senx1l]

It looks like a promising read so far. Minor grammar issues, punctuation could be improved, and I think I saw some misplaced and repeated words, but I have not spotted any major issues.

If I were to point out something, it's mostly the last time skip. It's sudden, practically without any acknowledgment of the passing time or build-up to it, with one scene ending and immediately it's one month later. Another thing would be, see if you can write paragraphs longer than one or two lines. For example, much of Aerea’s POV in the last chapter could be condensed into bigger chunks, which could help with the [visual] flow. But do what suits you.

Sorry I vanished for a bit but I usually just speedrun writing and attempt to do sum grammar fixes but I still take a min. I will go over the chapters I posted and see what I can fix.

Thank you for the bit on the time skips, one thing I kinda hate is writing the POV of a baby. I look at it as boring cuz there’s nothing I can really do with the character until there older or at least interacting with people properly. That’s for the sudden time skips but I will probably briefly rewrite some of my chapters to better get across her time as a baby and her development? Maybe I can even add in a chapter or two between them to better flesh out her relationship with her brothers, save for her father and mother because I’ve made it a point to where she barely sees them because of their duties.

The short paragraphs is because I don’t want it to be a big wad of paragraphing. One thing I just dislike when reading a story is getting lost in a paragraph and restarting but I will attempt to make them longer of course in the way you suggested.

Most of this stuff you commented on is just habits of mines I need to fix lol. Thank you for the advice/suggestions.

For most of the stories I've written, either personal or commissioned, I actually think about how it's going to end first - then outline backwards from there. This is common for me especially for mystery and horror stories. I want to give the readers a big pay-off, so I plan the ending in advance. *^^*

That actually puts it into perspective a lot. Maybe one thing I should focus on for right now is where I see the characters I now have planned ending up. Do I want them to achieve their dreams? Do I want them to succeed in their endeavors? Do I want them to fail? My best bet is writing down a character/plot chart and going from there. :)

 

[Danja]

Some shows have a defined finale. And then there's Spongebob. No "real" ending, but a few are suggested as endings, but it still keeps going right?

So if you aren't sure, and you can't decide, just flip a coin. Heads it has an ending you decide, tails you write it so its like spongebob and never ends.

The Simpsons has been going on for 36 years now!

 

[soupsabaw]

I always make sure to make an end goal before I start something or at least before I get too far into it. I've ended up having to scrap a lot of writing and scenes I liked because they didn't fit in with what I managed to come up with for an ending. Also having an ending planned out helps greatly with making sure you're not throwing in a bunch of pointless scenes. "Why is this here?" "Uh, I don't know. I didn't have an idea in mind and was just writing, but it has no general purpose." There's a difference between random scenes with no meaning and happy filler for a break from the main storyline.

When I come up with my endings, I think of my characters and my setting:

For instance, I have a very happy, easy-going mc who loves photography. She lives in a massive city where even different regions have different cultures of people. The South is rich, and the North is desolate after the rich decided to turn the North into a dumpster. I kept racking my brain thinking "Wow, how do I make my mc do something?" I didn't want to have the whole city planned out and do nothing about it. It needed to be fixed! In the end, I finally came up with something.

Personally, I got tired of heroine mcs. I wanted to create someone who was a bit selfless and didn't do something amazing for the greater good but for personal reasons. The mc's adopted brother is a Northerner, so he's surrounded by guilt a lot thinking of how he escaped the horrible living situation that's still there because he lives in the mid-region of the city safe and sound while his people are still suffering. She uses her social media presence with photography to bring more attention to the Northern situation and begins to create connections to solve it. Not because she came to realize it on her own. She even admits if he was never her brother, she would have never looked the North's way. Additionally, helping the North boosts her photography business. She is selfish. Not that she isn't a good person, but she's not super brave. She's an average woman. She's scared when she's scared.

So, I guess in short, my answer is that my ending comes to me after I flesh out some aspects of the story like characters and settings. If your characters don't fit in the setting, the story wouldn't make sense... Like putting James Bond in Blue's Clues or something. It's okay to get into it a little bit, but if you go too far, you might end up having to scrap things you don't want to or making your story a bit complex. Of course, that's just my answer and outlook on it.

 

[LeilaniOtter]

That actually puts it into perspective a lot. Maybe one thing I should focus on for right now is where I see the characters I now have planned ending up. Do I want them to achieve their dreams? Do I want them to succeed in their endeavors? Do I want them to fail? My best bet is writing down a character/plot chart and going from there. :)

I missed your reply, sorry about that. ?
That's exactly what you should do, and I'll tell you why.
The characters are the most important part of the story, whatever it is. So, make a character list, include everyone involved, their backstory, their origin, their relationship to others, and anything else you can think of that "builds" the characters. From here, I 99.9% guarantee you'll know exactly what to do. ?

 

[Senx1l]

I always make sure to make an end goal before I start something or at least before I get too far into it. I've ended up having to scrap a lot of writing and scenes I liked because they didn't fit in with what I managed to come up with for an ending. Also having an ending planned out helps greatly with making sure you're not throwing in a bunch of pointless scenes. "Why is this here?" "Uh, I don't know. I didn't have an idea in mind and was just writing, but it has no general purpose." There's a difference between random scenes with no meaning and happy filler for a break from the main storyline.

When I come up with my endings, I think of my characters and my setting:

For instance, I have a very happy, easy-going mc who loves photography. She lives in a massive city where even different regions have different cultures of people. The South is rich, and the North is desolate after the rich decided to turn the North into a dumpster. I kept racking my brain thinking "Wow, how do I make my mc do something?" I didn't want to have the whole city planned out and do nothing about it. It needed to be fixed! In the end, I finally came up with something.

Personally, I got tired of heroine mcs. I wanted to create someone who was a bit selfless and didn't do something amazing for the greater good but for personal reasons. The mc's adopted brother is a Northerner, so he's surrounded by guilt a lot thinking of how he escaped the horrible living situation that's still there because he lives in the mid-region of the city safe and sound while his people are still suffering. She uses her social media presence with photography to bring more attention to the Northern situation and begins to create connections to solve it. Not because she came to realize it on her own. She even admits if he was never her brother, she would have never looked the North's way. Additionally, helping the North boosts her photography business. She is selfish. Not that she isn't a good person, but she's not super brave. She's an average woman. She's scared when she's scared.

So, I guess in short, my answer is that my ending comes to me after I flesh out some aspects of the story like characters and settings. If your characters don't fit in the setting, the story wouldn't make sense... Like putting James Bond in Blue's Clues or something. It's okay to get into it a little bit, but if you go too far, you might end up having to scrap things you don't want to or making your story a bit complex. Of course, that's just my answer and outlook on it.

You know what, I did mention something in my earlier chapters when I did an info dump about a particular group being enslaved. My best bet probably is to expand on that in the future when the MC first comes face to face with a member of that group. She’ll be given more information on why they were enslaved, save for the bits of details she already knows. I’ll have her witness firsthand their treatment and that’ll be the moment my MC makes a choice. Does want to free them? Does she want to make a change? Does she want to be a hero? I appreciate your perspective on this.

I missed your reply, sorry about that. ?
That's exactly what you should do, and I'll tell you why.
The characters are the most important part of the story, whatever it is. So, make a character list, include everyone involved, their backstory, their origin, their relationship to others, and anything else you can think of that "builds" the characters. From here, I 99.9% guarantee you'll know exactly what to do. ?

You’re alright and I’ve already started it and it’s going pretty well!

 

[Zagaroth]

For me, I just started with writing the opening scene in my head and rolled on from there.

However,

What I did from there was as I discovered more about the characters and world from writing them, I also discovered links to potential antagonists. I built up those connections, and then made one of them my end point for the series. When that antagonist is overcome, that is the climax. After that it's wrap up, because there are no likely threats for the MCs. Not that there is nothing out there that *could* be a threat, but there is nothing that makes sense to aim at them, at least, not without raising the stakes in a way I don't want. And that wouldn't tie to the personal growth arcs in anyway, it'd just be an excuse to write them more.

OTOH, I have laid out some world building that can be used for future stories, and have introduced some side characters that will become the focus of my next story, as there are mysteries to discover for them, and threads I have laid down that will not be tied up in the first story, but their story.