I can’t speak for any other writer, but as for me, one of the most enjoyable times in working on my books is when I reach the climax of the third act. I always get a little giddy as I work on bringing down the bad guy. Sometimes, I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to do it. I just know they are going down, and I am excited to see how it all works out.
Before you begin to believe I don’t know what is going to happen in my books, let me explain. Generally, I work from a solid outline. That outline is sometimes left a bit vague in order to give me room to improvise or change something if I feel it needs to be changed. My plan might have been to take the bad guy down in a hail of gunfire or to take them down with a well-choreographed fist fight.
But sometimes, in the midst of moving through important details of a story, I find things may change in my mind. Perhaps a character flaw presents itself that I had not anticipated. Or maybe I begin to feel that a certain ending is just not good enough for a villain I created. To quote a movie, “Nothing but a glorious death will do.”
Of course, for most writers, the most difficult part of writing is the editing. Many times, we writers edit ourselves to death, if you’ll pardon the expression. The truth is that we always want to create a great product. And because of that, we can go a little overboard in our efforts to edit. We agonize over a single word or phrase, and can spend hours and hours trying to get it just right.
But at some point, you have to finish. Just kill/arrest/beat up/ or knock out the bad guy already. Turn the manuscript over to a professional editor. In other words, just get it done.
Here is to just getting it done!
Rodney
