Useful Frames

Sometimes it’s hard to finish a story because you want it to be perfect – bullet-proof against all criticism. Intellectually, you may know this isn’t possible, but you also feel as though you’ve read stories that you thought were perfect. Except you haven’t. You’ve only read stories you loved so much you easily forgave all those small inconsistencies or lags in energy. Who cares? All’s forgiven when a story leaves you in a place so much better than where you were when you started it.

And sometimes it’s hard to finish a story because as you come to its conclusion it seems suddenly quite small to you. It’s only about one thing. When you had conceived of it, it filled your mind and heart, and it continued to do so as you found its shape – but now, looking at it, it’s just a story about someone who has then loses then has again. That’s all. And that’s okay. Remember that it will expand in the mind of the reader, blossoming in the light of their imagination as they perceive the fullness of having what they feared had been lost.

But sometimes it’s hard to finish just because you must accept you won’t have that friend of a story to spend time with anymore. It wasn’t always an easy relationship, you had your arguments, you even considered parting ways right in the middle, but you found your way, and in the end, you were grateful for the opportunity to join it every day at your desk. What will you do without it? You assume you’ll write another one, but that’s of little consolation now as you sense the solitary path before you. You’re on your own again.

Then you’ve sent the story away, and for a moment you wonder what the point of writing it was in the first place. Yes, there will be some money and all that, but the money was never the point. What was the point again? It’s hard to remember here by yourself where it’s just you and your thoughts, you and your idle dreams. Make a friend of those, and you’ll have another story. Endings are illusions anyway, as are beginnings, the useful frames we put around a world that goes on forever.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

William KenowerWilliam Kenower, Writing, Stories, EndingsComment