In Which I Blog About Twitter and Wax On About Endings

So I am totally getting the hang of this whole twitter thing, and loving it. I'm completely fascinated, but trying not to get addicted, because that would be bad and I'd be less productive and we definitely don't want any of that!

So Geoff read the entire book last night-OMG-and we got to bounce around some ideas I had about the ending which now I am completely obsessed with perfecting. It's funny because I spent two years totally consumed by my opening, rewriting and rewriting it so many times that I think the FNC is still traumatized and shudders if the words "Chapter One" escape my lips.

But really, can you blame me? I mean as writers (especially newbie unpublished writers) we are told over and over again how important the begining of a book is by agents, by publishers, by writing conferences and classes and I think there's even a book called "The First Five Pages" and SCBWI hosts First Page Sessions all the time. We are taught to believe that we have to hook them with our first line, amaze them with our witty dialogue on page one, wow them with our voice. And the only way to get published is to do that. Agents decided whether or not they want to read your book and represent you by asking for the first few pages of your book. Readers in book stores decided to buy a book by opening the first page. Well I'm not saying this isn't all true, it is, but there is more!

No one ever starts with the end of the book, and agents never ever say to you, "hey please send me a one page synopsis and your really awesome climactic scene from the end."

Except for Kate Hudson in that one movie she did a bunch of years ago with that guy where she would open to the end of a book before deciding if she would read it and the guy was a writer and she was a typist and had to type up his book because he neded to finish it so that the Spanish mafia wouldn't put a hit on him because he borrowed some money to go gambling or something like that. What was it called?

Anyway.

But really, it's the end of the book that makes readers happy and that causes them to recommend your book to their friends. No one ever goes, "OMG this book had the best first line ever, you should totally read the whole thing." No! They recommend a book because the overall experience of reading it was great and this was cemented by a really fabulous ending!

You know what happens when we don't like endings...we get angry, we resent the author, we throw our books across the room and we do not recommend that book to our friends, in fact we unrecommend it-yeah!

So you can see that its only natural now that I would become a bit obsessed and consumed with the ending. I want readers to come away feeling satisfied and happy with their entire reading experience and not feel cheated by a really cool opening that just fell flat. I just hope that this obsession of mine doesn't last as long as my opening first chapter obsession did (nearly two years). Because I really want to finish my book and have it be perfect soon so I can send it out.

And then Twitter about it!

Ok...so I totally just went to IMDB and I found it. The Kate Hudson movie is called Alex and Emma and the guy is Luke Wilson-now I remember! Woohoo!


Kate Hudson says, "Write a better ending next time, Luke Wilson or you are going to lose me as a reader! No, I don't care about your totally sweet first line or the awesome cliffhanger at the end of chapter one, I want a better climax dammit and you need to deliver...LUKE WILSON get your mind out of the gutter! I'm talking about literature here!"