On Alternate Endings for The Long and Dark

WARNING! This post contains MASSIVE SPOILERS for The Long and Dark. It assumes you have finished the book. Read on at your own risk. You have been warned. The warned one is you.

During the writing process, I lay out the entire storys plot in an outline from start to end. Even high-level, this gives me a concrete idea of how the narrative starts and ends. While there is some latitude or wiggle room for changes, like where sequences can be adjusted for better pacing, most of the time there is a...