8th July 2016 | for Creatives | Colum McCann, writing, storytelling, story endings, Nikolai Gogol |
"Gogol once said that the true, unwritten last line of every story is: 'And nothing was ever the same again.' The same could also be said for the first line of any story: 'And from that moment on, everything was about to change.'"
"I think a story, when properly told, finds its own natural length. If you try to extend it too much, it just stretches and begins to bore, and if you try to compress it too much, it just fractures. So you just hope that you can find the right rhythm. It's a musical thing. You feel it out, you cut back, you switch things around—until it feels entirely natural. A story should feel easy when of course it's far from easy." (artist)
"Every great story, regardless of genre, will include a twist. Why? Readers want to be both satisfied and surprised. The more they can decipher exactly where a story is going, the more disappointed they'll be.... Satisfying twists are revelatory in the sense that they add new meaning to all that precedes them."
"A story has many threads: character arcs, themes, ideas, plots, and so forth. A good ending ties up most of these. The best ending ties them all up."
"An author should never be afraid to let an ending offer new questions heaped upon the answers of the old."
"Art takes time. Stories have their own heartbeat, and they will unfold at their own pace. All you have to do is to continue to show up and do the work. Every day."
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