While writing a story idea, I generally do not know the exact end. But it is important to broadly know what happens next.
At the idea level, I start the story with a particular character and the conflict that the character is facing, and a general sense of the setting.
For example, it may sound like this: A story about a middle aged woman who seeks freedom to be herself and goes on a trek as she wants to break free from the many roles she plays in her routine habitual marriage and successful work life. This is at the idea level.
But when I sit down to start writing this story, I thrash it down into an outline. The outline typically contains a brief about the scenes of the story, and how every scene moves the story forward due to something that happens.
At this stage, I generally try to chart out some detail about the scene trying to answer the question, ‘what happens next?’ I let the character guide me on the answer. Whatever the answer may be, but it has to be there.
It sometimes so happens that what actually happens next in the story is quite different from what I have written in the outline.
But what I have realized is that unless I have some idea, to start with, of what happens next, it is difficult to write a good story.
If I have no idea, the story either meanders, meaning it goes nowhere despite the words on paper, or I have to manufacture something like a surprise or a twist or even sometimes, a miracle. In each of these cases, it doesn’t make good writing and hence it isn’t good reading. The reader often feels cheated.
Therefore, I try to answer the question ‘what happens next?’ to a reasonable extent even before I start. And in most cases, when I have it answered, writing the story is like a smooth ride in a particular direction. I might face potholes and I might not know the exact destination, but the direction is set.
I have often wondered if this is metaphor that also applies in life situations too in general. And I have concluded that it does.
On many occasions in the past, whether it is in business or work situations, or at a family happening, or any project, whenever there has been a fairly clear answer to the question ‘what happens next?’ (at least in my mind), I have found the sailing smooth.
And if the people you work with in that work or family or project situation are also aligned on that answer, it ends up becoming a pleasant joyride.
Otherwise, it is a journey full of bumps with no idea if it is getting anywhere. And on such occasions, I find myself going nowhere, or even worse, looking for a surprise exit or a miracle to get out. It is something I have to manufacture.
More often that not, such a story, fictional or in real life, doesn’t have a happy ending.
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