In The Home Stretch; or Are We There Yet?

(I know, I know. This is actually last Thursday's posting, running a little late again. I'll try to do tomorrow's on time...)

So here I am, closing in on the end of my current Work In Progress, the second volume of the now four-volume Winterbourne trilogy. (I know. Shut up.) And, as usually happens at this point in a story, I just really really want to be done with it. I love these characters, love spending time with them, love making their lives ever-so-interesting. But even loving them as I do, there comes a time when I just want their story out of my head and down on paper (or at least in electronic bits), and to say that it is finished.

I want to spend a little time with some of my other stories and characters, and spend some time editing (because Inner Editor has been more-or-less on a leash since November, and she's getting REALLY cranky). So part of me is tempted to just get it done any old way, so I can set it aside for a while and use my few brain cells for other things for a few weeks.

But of course, the other part of me wants to get it right. I know it can (and will) be edited later, but I have to at least capture the essence of each scene, even if the details change. There are seeds I need to plant for later development, and I have to make sure I at least get them in there, even if I want to bury them a little deeper before the story sees the light of day. And one of the few remaining scenes I have to write is a confrontation between Celia Winterbourne and her father. There are reasons why the two sides are mutually incompatible, and no compromise can be reached. My challenge is to present it so that neither side appears to be totally unreasonable or overly emotional. Nor can either side appear to give in. (Yes, that "appear to" is very important.) At least not until the very final scene of the story.

So in some respects, I feel as though I still have a long way to go, while in others, I can almost reach out and touch the end of the long dark tunnel of this story. It makes me feel like a little kid in the back seat of my parents' station wagon again, asking every five minutes, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?!"

And Mom keeps answering, "Five more minutes."

I just wish I could tell, at this point, whether it'll be worth the trip. Because, yes, I have also reached the point where I'm certain the entire story sucks and no one would ever want to read it. It happens. I'm aware that it happens. That doesn't keep it from happening.

What sorts of challenges do other people face in completing a story? Are endings easy or hard? Are we there yet?




(Anyone care to take a guess as to what the final word count for this story will be? Hint: > 150,000 words and < 200,000. Yes, really.)

A Hint of Things To Come; or ... Foreshadowing

Last week, I did something disconcerting.

I threw Celia, the main character in my work-in-progress, off of her airship while it was in flight.

Don't worry, she's fine. She was wearing a harness and had a rope tied to it. Of course, Nicholas Fletcher, her love interest, was pretty upset about it anyway, because he wasn't expecting it.

He should have been, though, because I foreshadowed it a couple of times earlier in the story. I mentioned a couple of times how, when Celia was younger, her father used to have to tie a rope around her so that when she fell -- or perhaps jumped -- over the edge, he could haul her back in again. And after I'd mentioned that a couple of times, I pretty much had to have a scene where Celia went over the edge of the gondola, didn't I?

I have to admit that my foreshadowing doesn't always work out that well. Quite often, I have to go back after the fact and say, "Hmm, how can I foreshadow this major plot point earlier on in the story?" Sometimes I can find a way to tuck hints in seamlessly, but sometimes it doesn't work out so well. That's why it's so satisfying to me when I can put the foreshadowing in, well, ahead of time.

Then, of course, there's the question of how much foreshadowing you should do, and how much is enough, and how much is too much. As a reader, I like there to be surprises; I don't like everything to be laid out too clearly ahead of time. And I certainly don't like to be hit over the head repeatedly by the author, who is determined that I not miss what's coming because I just wasn't paying attention.

So I don't foreshadow everything. I don't even do all the major plot points. But I do like to throw in a few hints, just to see who's paying attention.

How much foreshadowing do other folks do? What are some of the best and worst examples you've read (or written)?