When John Irving writes a novel, he always starts out with the . Once he knows the ending in detail, he begins writing all the parts of the story that lead to the ending. This writing method reminds me of the business method that lots of entrepreneurs follow, in which they have a clear vision of what things will look like eventually, even though they can’t predict the precise path to follow to get there. In both cases, I think there are lots of roads that lead to Rome. The important thing is knowing the destination.
PS – Before John Irving adopted this writing method, he wrote three commercially unsuccessful books that he claims couldn’t get published by a new author today…
Will Marlow co-founded AlumniFidelity to help his clients reposition their fundraising to benefit from Web2.0 technology and marketing techniques. He’s working with clients such as UVA, the College of William & Mary, the University of Oklahoma, Bowling Green State University, Randolph Macon College, and he loves nothing better than a thorny marketing challenge. Email him at will@alumnifidelity.com.
This put me in mind of an author I admire who is also fairly successful, Neil Gaiman, but who has a different take on writing which I’ve found in the answer to a question asked on his blog:’Do you know the ending of the stories you write before placing the first word of it? I once heard that you must know the ending because a story is travel between point A and point B. i know that this is arguable but i kinda agree it. What do u think?”Some stories I know the end of before I start them. Some I just know how they begin. Some I know how they middle, and some I just have one image from somewhere in the story. Each story is different.’http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2002/10/home-again_14.aspIt may be that for an entrepreneur knowing the ending is vital but I think the analogy with writing is a bit too generalised.Sorry to be argumentative on my first comment.Rob
No apology necessary – I didn’t mean to over-generalize. I once read that Stephen King doesn’t know the ending of all of his novels before he sets out to write. I meant to be pretty singularly focused on John Irving, who says he adheres to this method diligently (and his books were really hard to read prior to adopting it).I’m glad you gave me an excuse to visit Neil Gaiman’s blog (I’m a fan of his fiction, but haven’t read it for awhile). cheers, W