Melanie Nilles

I had a revelation this morning about a story I had started, which had died several deaths.  I suspect a lot of that had to do with the fact that I wasn’t sure about an ending.  I finally realized it was meant to be a short.  After starting the process of paring down what I have to what I can still use, I reached a point where I couldn’t use anything beyond that, except some of the worldbuilding and background info.

That’s where I sat down and started planning.  It flowed into an ending.  Better yet, it makes perfect sense!  I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.  But sometimes that happens.  As with A Turn of Curses, I was trying to stretch a short story into a novel.  Condensing what I had done of that wasn’t easy.  This one won’t be either, but it will be worth it in the end.  (I mean that literally )

I have to know my ending as a guide to write an effective story.  When I don’t know it, I have trouble writing.  I need a goal to aim for.  With the daemon story, I now have that.  I hope to keep it under the 17K word count limit of the Writers of the Future Contest.  Might as well keep submitting as long as I’m qualified to enter.   After all, Curses made honorable mention.  Perhaps Daemon can too.

Now that the ending makes sense, I have that goal to write towards.  It’ll be tight, but I’m sure I can do it.  After all, I did it once already!