Has this happened to you?

Vladd67

Vladd67

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Working on a story and the ending came to me in a flash, however it is dark and depressing and now I am really down. I'm not sure how the story gets to that point I just know that it seems to fit, but it really puts me in a dark place. Anyone else had similar happen.
 
Yes. Sometimes you just suddenly understand how it all ends, and sometimes it isn't the happy ending you expected.
 
Yes. I'd also say that it's much easier to write your characters into a lot of trouble than it is to write them out of it. It's hard sometimes to work out how a happy ending can happen in a big-scale book without a large force of good guys defeating the villains in some kind of battle.
 
Hi Vlad, yes I had to write a scene where one of my characters get physically abused. To give it the emotional impact I wanted I had to draw up my own real life experiences and recall some very painful memories to give it some authenticity. I procrastinated for about 3 months before I could write it, it was probably the hardest piece I had to write but the story is all the better for it.
 
Vladd67 said:
Working on a story and the ending came to me in a flash, however it is dark and depressing and now I am really down. I'm not sure how the story gets to that point I just know that it seems to fit, but it really puts me in a dark place. Anyone else had similar happen.
Click to expand...

I can relate to that, but in the end, it was the better story to tell. :)
 
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I'd "planned" on writing a novel for a decade before actually putting epen to epaper, and I was laser focused on an ending where the protagonist - abandoned and emotionally scarred - killed an entire army by himself in a fit of rage. Okay, so it was a lot darker than I intended, but I never even questioned having my protagonist end a first in series novel this way.

Then I read a book that had a similar ending.

I hated it.

My first novel ended significantly differently. Glad I read that book!
 
I have the opposite problem. Everything I write seems to end up in ice-cream* and snuggles. I keep getting told I need to go darker.

I don't mind reading a dark ending if it makes sense. But it's nice when there's at least a tiny ray of hope...

*Seriously, my first ever novel was a middle grade that literally ended in an ice-cream shop.
 
Yeah, my story for Lake Manor was like that. I never intended to kill anyone, but I got there and discovered I had. Well, that's the peril of writing horror, I suppose. Otherwise I'm like Juliana, with ice cream and ...well, I'd say kittens, but I know how kittens get around here. :eek:
 
Kind of. I am an outliner so the ending is usually the first thing I plan... and yet, I did have a bit of a jolt when I was writing a scratch version of my final scene (out of sequence) and my character suddenly did the opposite thing to what I had planned. I am about 50K words from writing the final chapter for real, so it remains to be seen what will happen when I get there... follow the outline? Or go with the character? BAH!

Juliana said:
I keep getting told I need to go darker.
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By who? There are plenty of dark corners and damp sewers to write about, sure... but there are just as many kittens and ice cream cones that deserve screen time. I'd say, generally, write the stories you want to write and :poop: everyone else.
 
Juliana said:
Everything I write seems to end up in ice-cream* and snuggles. I keep getting told I need to go darker.
Click to expand...

I make a serious high-cocoa chocolate and Cointreau gelato over the summer. Pretty dark stuff.
 
i wrote a book many years in the future from Mayhem and it was a dark, dark story with the darkest of endings. It has a dedicated reader of horror and an old soldier in tears and begging me to give the MC a happy ending. In the end I added an epilogue to give a shred of hope to the MC (he was suicidal but because he was immortal couldn't die).
 
OK, more on topic...

I have a character who has already died, been resurrected and has unhappy memories of her execution as a heretic, but the details were always very generic and mostly just a part of her motivation to track down and slaughter those she regards as responsible.

Then I ended up writing another thread following a character who witnessed the execution, so now I have to go back and re-write chunks of the first character now that I know what really happened.
 
Um....

What does it say about me that no matter how "dark" or "light" the writing gets, as long as it's flowing well I'm happy. When dark flows, I do sinister giggles over the new torturous twist that spring to mind, grinchean sneery smiles, and put off all around creepy vibes.
When light, I'm kitten in the sun with butterfly friends to romp with... fairly bubbling over with sunshine and oppressivly positive outlooks.

Should it bother me that I not only have these sides, but can flip between them faster than a professional channel surfer can flick through 150 channels to find there's nothing on?

I had decided not, but after reading this thread... I wonder.
 
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