Enough End to Go On With

In spite of all the writing advice books and blogs and web sites that tell you to start by making up the ending, I can’t think of any professional writers I know who do this in the strictest sense, at least as their regular process. (I’ve known a couple who were struck by an ending-idea for a particular story, but it wasn’t their usual process.)

The vast majority of writers I know start with a character, or a background/setting, or an incident, or some other basic facet of story. The ending d...