How to do endings

See you in early September as we approach the new term. See last para for tips on where to get tips in the meanwhile.

It's hard to teach endings, isn't it? I mean, beginnings are easy-peasy*... or rather, it is easy to spark students with stimulus exercises in all sorts of ways (a picture, an object, a word, a sentence, a memory etc etc) but an ending has to be an ending... of something.

You might think of having students complete a draft of a short story/poem and then make them change to a different ending -- YOU might do that, but I wouldn't. I feel that once a writer has got all the way through to an ending he/she has invested too much in it to flippantly 'stimulus exercise' different endings.

But you can get students to think about different endings -- via lecture and examples from published writers. And -- here's the main exercise I use: get them to mess around with published writers' work. I have a wonderful book called Great Beginnings, opening lines of great novels (Georgianne Ensign, HarperCollins 1993; thank you to dear friend Beverly for the gift of it). From it I have copytyped selected short opening paragraphs. Each student then writes an ending for the opening paragraph she/he has been given. They have not a clue as to what happened in between, but it's extraordinary how the start gives clues for the final few sentences of a work.

We read out, and here we discuss some types of endings (echo, closing the circle, opposite, open-ended, image etc). Then (here's the flippant stimulus-type approach) I make them choose a different way to end (opposite to what they did, or stronger or gentler or happier or blacker) -- that's what I mean about messing around. From this the students get a good working sense of the options and power of the very ending of a piece. This method can work with poetry as well. Now they can go away and consider the endings of their own works in progress (or works yet begun).

*Of course beginnings aren't really easy -- how many times have you re-crafted the opening of your novel, short story, poem, article? It's got to hook and intrigue, got to say enough but not too much, got to have the right tone, language -- the voice. But this is the writing is re-writing part, which all writers eventually have to get comfortable with... without letting it inhibit their initial start.

With all of this ending stuff, guess what? My way of saying it's the end of the term and this blog until September! If you need ammo during the summer check my list of labels for past blogs, especially under exercises and stimulus. And there's an exercise and tutor tip from the book on the Creative Writing: the Matrix website.

Another source of exercises is http://www.mslexia.co.uk/magazine/workshops/workshops.php#latest

Creative unblocking

Alternative title for today's blog is 'The Uses of Silliness' and it comes from Trickster energy, that is, the archetypal Trickster element of the Hero's Journey/Writer's Journey. It was the final class (of 4) last week. I save Trickster til the end because... (a) it takes nerve to present it and (b) it is a good laughing antidote to taking ourselves and our writing too seriously.

First part of the session was writing exercises and talk on Ways of Ending; also reprise on structure/dramatic tension -- why a story needs both a crisis and a climax. (See Christopher Vogler's book, The Writer's Journey, on this.) Then the silly part: little pots of Play Doh, and instructions to paired students to quickly-quickly make a little creature and create a little drama:
they meet, they like each other, they fight, they hug and make up, The End. Fast-fast-fast!

Silly? You bet. Everyone starts giggling and laughing, and I do it with them, and there is NO TIME to be self-conscious or serioso... just time to be quick, childlike and fun. As tutor you have to present it so rapidly that students don't have time to object or think about it or ask questons: be confident, steam ahead!

Afterwards I explain the Trickster archetype -- the jester, the comic side-kick, the banana skin, the puffed-up-ego-deflator, the bringer-down-to-earth, the loosener of soil. In a wonderful talk, Clarissa Pinkola Estes tells the story of Demeter mourning and seeking Persephone http://shop.soundstrue.com/shop.soundstrue.com/SelectProd.do?prodId=1871&manufacturer=Sounds%20True&category=Inspiration&name=The%20Creative%20Fire, when in her moment of deepest despair the impudent Balbo comes along... a bit of the comic erotic. All the same stuff -- the force, often unbidden, that makes or lets us laugh at our troubles. And in so doing gain perspective and refreshment.

I describe a similar but somewhat less courage-demanding (for the tutor) exercise in Cr Wr The Matrix, Exercise 86, Feel Free Joy, page 115; using crayons, pencils, felt markers. I've done it with coloured paper, too; a rapido collage. Any of these are ideal not only for fun, but to loosen a class, a group or an individual (yourself???) to break up po-faced, rigid, blocked creativity... to aid
loose and flowing creativity.

And then it was farewell, Heroes (after the usual evaluate/feedback forms the college needs and I use as my own 'report card' for my own future teaching ideas). And then, off to the pub.

Planning farewells

Tis the season of farewells -- end of term, of course, of year. Maybe I am a bit late in suggesting this to you now, maybe not: a class anthology to round out your course?

The important thing is to make a learning experience of it. Do NOT choose the samples of work, reproduce and put it together yourself. No, no, no.

Bring in anthologies from previous classes, or from other writing gatherings (the Arvon week I attended did one, and many medium-level competitions issue anthologies of winning entries). These show your class the range of simplicity (photocopied pages stapled together) to sophistication (a www.lulu.com booklet) so your students can decide what to do.

Then set out the editorial and production realities, and get the class to discuss and make decisions. This is what makes it a lesson in publishing, so that writing students may come to appreciate some of what publishers do for them. What size, how many pages = how many, how long contributions are.

Will there be a theme? New writing for the theme? Or selections of existing writing? What about a title? Cover design? Someone has to do table of contents. Someone(s) has to collect, collate and then number pages -- is it going to be done all in one style of font and layout? Therefore is proofreading needed?

And don't leave out the fun bit where writers get to write their own short author description for a listing at the back. Or front. Or at end/start of each piece.

And then there's reproduction. How many? Will your teaching institution do it? At no charge? Or do students have access to photocopying, or do they club money and take it to a copyshop?

Whew -- a lot of work. So it is not up to tutor but up to proud writer-students to do the work and learn from it. A class anthology makes a wonderful souvenir of the course for everyone -- including you, the tutor.

Birds don't brag

Feeling a little blue today -- maybe because tomorrow's the last Hero's Journey class. We will cover the Resurrection of the protagonist, and dwell on endings. Never sure of a good exercise for endings, so I looked up endings in this very blog, wondering what I have said before. Lo and behold it was this very week one year ago that I wrote about endings! How enthusiastic I sound, and it reminds me that the class I planned did work well. If you need endings ideas, go there.

I'm also covering the Trickster archetype, and will repeat the risky venture I took last year, using play-dough for a lively funny exercise. Trickster loosens things up!

Meanwhile, here is something from the day-by-day calender my sister the artist makes for family and friends every year. At this moment it strikes home:

Birds don't brag about flying.
They don't write books about it
and then give workshops,
they don't take on disciples and
spoil their own air time. -- Tukaram

That old writing/teaching pull. I think it is time for me to write.

Writing endings

Yes, I know endings was last week with the advanced writers, but tomorrow is endings again, for my Hero's Journey/Writer's Journey crew, and the end of the 5-week course as well. I discovered I do have some further endings exercises and this will be fun.

First exercise: writing The End in the middle of the page. There, doesn't that feel good? Then we'll write an ending to a given (published) fiction beginning. Then move on to their own main characters developed during the course. We'll talk a bit about the difficulty writers can have in finishing a piece, not so much craft as reluctance to let go. Then it's good bye and good luck.

Just before that I'll give the antidote pep talk: I try to say often that 'writing by numbers' is not the point. They are to put all this in the back of their minds, not to try to slavishly follow the heroic archetype characters and narrative. Bear it in mind for stimulation or rewriting, but -- sorry folks -- there's no secret recipe or map. Just get on and write.

Admirably, my writing coach client is getting on and writing; we met today over our usual cappuccino amid the lovely May. So encouraging for both of us (the writing I mean; May too).

Turning points & tying threads

Special moments or turning points, plus which threads need tying up/which don't at the end of the novel -- this is the challenge from my bespoke advanced writers group, to teach tomorrow.

Moments, now that's a good one. I've thought through and come up with Pinnacle, Earthquake, Clarification Moments, plus Historical Moments (less personal) and Triggers (not necessarily moment-experiences... but related). It's quite philosophical or fateful. What is a special moment, how do we recognise it, how create/find it? And then, how to use and place it in a work? Then of course, writing it.

I think we'll read out Ian McEwan's car crash near-miss from A Child in Time. And Stephen King has a snippet of good advice in his On Writing. We'll do some life-listing, some intense sense recall, some writing. And plenty of discussion.

As for endings -- anybody out there have good endings exercises to share? I have a few, but it's hard really... because you need all the stuff before in order to play with endings. So we will talk over 4 writers' comments on endings (Marshall, Gardner, McKee, Ray) and see what we all think. So much depends on the particular work in hand. Might play with Ray's 'chain of events' end-check and Cinderella to exercise ourselves re tying up threads.

As for Hero's Journey, episode 4 this week, Transformation of the Hero. They mostly have not seen Star Wars and my fav Disneys, but have seen Titanic, so I rewatched it on Saturday night. Okay, it's corny, cliched and spectacular, but it certainly is good story-telling. And loads of archetypal elements... does even Shakespeare use these? one student asked. Yes, m'am, have a look.