A case study on ending problems

When I am writing according to my normal process, I nearly always have some degree of ending in mind from very early on in the process. It’s nearly always wrong as to specifics (if I have any specifics; for a while, every plot outline I wrote ended with “There is a big fight/confrontation and the good guys win. Appropriate rewards and weddings follow.”), but at least I have something to aim at.

Twice now, though, I’ve written books where I had no idea what the ending was going to be when I st...