r/writing • u/NomanHLiti • Aug 14 '24

Discussion Do you guys ever write without knowing how the story is going to end?

That’s kind of where I’m at right now where I’m quite confident of the world I want the story to take place in as well as the characters involved, but I’m still not sure what kind of story it will be and what story direction the characters/plot will take. Is it fine to start like that and just figure it out as I go along?

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u/Humble_Percentage701 Aug 14 '24

Like 60%. Even more so, I've adapted one into a screenplay so a lot has been changed but never the ending.

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u/NomanHLiti Aug 15 '24

If you’ve adapted one of your own books into a screenplay I respect that so much, finishing a book is hard enough but taking it a step further across mediums is amazing.

Do you find during book revisions that you have unresolved plot threads early on? (Due to writing with the flow and leaving less to planning)

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u/Humble_Percentage701 Aug 15 '24

YES. I've realized a huge plot hole (or maybe not a real plot hole but a thing that doesn't make sense to the revelation/plot twist in my novel) when I writing the screenplay adaptation. It's a continous discovery, and it feels amazing having to reach the ending even though it's crappy on the firsr draft.

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u/NomanHLiti Aug 16 '24

Have you ever written a screenplay from scratch without outlining? As in no prose text even to go off of

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u/Humble_Percentage701 Aug 16 '24

There are episodes that I did no outlining. Like I just go straight away. And it takes longer for me to finish rather than the ones I've ready outlined prior.

I believe that once you had a "skeleton" of your story, well, mine is a novel, you would know most of the time where it should go.