O is for Outcome

Debra takes a look at the Happily Ever After...

Although I firmly assert that I am a pantster and not a plotter, even when I first start a story, I always have an idea of how the story will end. Obviously, since I write romance, the hero and heroine will overcome their issues and start their life together.

But I'm talking more specific than that. I usually have a vision of what the closing scene will look like. Sometimes I've been known to skip to that part and write it before I write other parts of the story. Which can get a bit confusing, but it does give me something concrete to aim for besides a general HEA.

Even for my latest project, tentatively titled "The Cowboy and the Princess", which I'm writing using my 'just add water' strategy a day at a time in a very linear fashion, I have an idea of how the story will end. Now I just have to get there!

(On a side note, that story - Which if you remember took me by surprise when it popped into my head last week - is going well...I'm up to 3,605 words in 8 days. My best day so far is 637 words. The least I've accomplished is 250. But every little bit adds up, right?

Anyway, I digress. I know, for me, sometimes the things my characters do in between chapter one and 'the end' sometimes surprise me. Sometimes my characters have a mind of their own and wind up doing things I never expected them to. But my endings always turn out pretty much how I envisioned them at the beginning.

How about you? Does the course of your story every change so much while you're writing it that the outcome is different than you intended/expected? Or are your HEAs firmly set?

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com