Infinite Choices

I typed THE END.

And by the time I did, the theme was so clear I had goosebumps.

And I wrote my pal Lurker Monkey. He also writes YA and Middle Grade. He also has had editors ask him, "So what's the theme?"

And I told Monkey Man that had I not known on a core level the theme of this book I would have been lost. And he said something brilliant (as he often does). It's about whittling down infinite choices.

And he's right.

In this second Magickeepers book, there appears the following: Alexander the Great, the Library of Alexandria, Anubis (the jackal-god), D.B. Cooper (yes, the guy who jumped out of the plane), Sir Isaac Newton, Edgar Allan Poe, Rasputin . . . pickled punks. Yes, I could go on, but there's a LOT of history and action. And every time someone speaks in the book, they could say anything, couldn't they?

I mean . . . even characters have freedom of speech.

Except . . . out of the realm of infinite choices, I CHOSE for them to speak words that included fragments of the theme. The symbolism . . . fragments of the theme. So that when I typed "THE END" there was a clear path. From the opening word to the last, once it was all done, there was the Yellow Brick Road the whole time.

If you've ever seen The Wonder Boys, you know that Grady was working on a Magnum Opus and could NOT STOP until it was a bloated wreck of a novel. He was lost in infinite choices.

Thoughts?

And how do YOU celebrate typing THE END?

Full Circle

The other day, I blogged about beginning your novel. Now I'll blog about endings.

I wish life had neat little endings. We talk about "closure" all the time. But really, I have found my life has no closure. Grief, for example, can strike me ten years after the fact and bring me to my knees as surely as the day a death first happened. Old relationships don't end neatly. I try to be "in the moment" and let go, but occasionally old hurts rise to the surface. I found out recently that someone said something unkind about me to Oldest Daughter. She said the person said it in a joking manner, but it didn't sound funny to me. I aim for closure, but I don't often get it.

But then I have my novels.

My characters nearly always get closure. They may not get a perfect Happily Ever After, but they aren't plagued by old baggage either. They get their answers, their closure, their new love, the ability to move on. Whatever they seek--solving a murder, finding love, saying good-bye to someone . . . they usually get. The path may have twists and turns, but in the end . . . SOMETHING happens.

Because in real life, sometimes something DOESN'T. I will never forget losing a friend in a plane crash. No bodies were recovered. For years, I would "see" him places. Doppelgangers. Because there was nothing to say good-bye to. Just ash.

Not so in my books. My characters, even the ones where it doesn't end well, get that "something"--that dramatic moment.

The other part of my endings is a sense of full circle. I nearly always reference something in the last chapter that happened in chapter one. In The Roofer the last line mirrors almost exactly the first chapter.

I like to think that when I die, I will have come full circle. I will have a sense of having accomplished what I wanted with no regrets. A completed circle is a sign of a life well-lived, I think.

Thoughts?