Endings are my weakness. When discussing personal/memoir style articles in our Travel Writing class, we were told to ignore any sort of writing “rules” we had learned in school besides the basic grammar stuff. We were free to use “I”, we didn’t have to follow structure and last of all we didn’t have to have a formal conclusion. I’m good with this, mostly, (i.e. in the beginning and the middle). Truth be told, endings always have and continue to haunt me. I feel that I need to wrap up any sort of non-fiction with a “what we have learned above is…” and in fiction they make me extremely insecure. I can dream up all sorts of situations, complex and simple, but I’m incapable of figuring out how they would work themselves out in a realistic un-abbreviated way. I can build tension till the cows come home but when it comes to conflict (the non-confrontational person I am), I prefer to skid through it at high speeds and wrap-up/conclude as soon as possible, to the point that even now I am having some trouble finishing this little piece on endings. So my goal for the next little while is to work on that skill, try to teach myself to end things properly and fully, even if it means that a story stays unfinished for so much longer, or I need to create fuller outlines. THE END.
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