Sometimes an ending comes as a surprise
Sometimes writers play games with their own minds. They set up little rules. They have superstitions. As I came close to writing the ending of Pierrot’s Song I made a decision. I would write everything but the epilogue. Then I would go back and read all three books again. Only then would I think about writing the epilogue. I wanted to do it justice, and to make sure I wrapped up everything properly.
Clearly my mind had other ideas. I woke up this morning, far too early, and I could hear the voice of one of my characters in my head. The three books of the Tales of Tarya series are written in the third person. Only the prologue to each book is in the first person. Normally when my characters speak, it is in scenes and dialogue. But this was different. This character had something to say, and I had to get out of bed and write it down immediately.
Avoiding the ending
I’ve been reluctant to write the end of this series. Writing three books is a long journey to undertake. You immerse yourself in a world of your own creation for a long time. It starts to feel as familiar as the real world. My characters are as alive to me as my friends. I know them in that intuitive way where I understand how they will act, without having to think too hard about it.
So I didn’t want to leave them. Saying goodbye is one of the hardest things to do in this life. Especially when you know it is permanent. I remember the agony of farewelling a friend I had met while travelling, not knowing if I would ever see her again since we lived on opposite sides of the world. Of leaving my father’s hospital room for the last time to fly home and go back to work, knowing there wouldn’t be time to come back before he passed away.
I could see the end of my series, drawing closer and closer. And I didn’t want it to arrive.
The unexpected magic of writing
I’m definitely a plotter, not a pantser. Mina’s story is one where secrets are uncovered. There is a puzzle at the heart of Mina’s quest, and only when she solves that can she do what she must. To create a puzzle, you need to plan in advance, planting seeds throughout the books. To uncover secrets you need to hide them, sometimes in plain sight. So I have always known where my final book would end. But writing is not entirely a logical process. Sometimes, perhaps the best of times, the intuitive brain kicks in. You may know what needs to happen, but not the fine detail of how it will happen. I love it when this occurs. But not at 6am!
But there is a story within a story in my trilogy. This is the tale of muses – the inspiration for all creative types. So when the muse tapped me on the shoulder and told me to wake up, I couldn’t really say no.
Finding flow and finding the ending
So I sat down with a notebook and pen. I didn’t even grab a coffee, because I wanted to capture the words before they dissolved in the morning light. And I wrote. The words ran across the page, paragraph after paragraph. It felt like magic. I knew what I needed to say. I didn’t have to give it any thought. And the ending of my series wrote itself. The voice in my head kept speaking until I had everything I needed written down. And then I was able to get up and start my day.
By doing this I broke my own rule. I still have two scenes left to write in the lead up to the epilogue. But maybe it’s better this way. Because if I had written these words after everything else was complete, I think I’d be feeling terribly bereft now. This is the end of the story after all. The curtain is about to close on the travelling players. But when your central character is a storyteller, I guess you learn some things about storytelling. And one of those things is that a story is a living thing. Sometimes it chooses how it should be told.
