I’m officially committing to finishing The World Is Getting Stranger
I know - I’ve said it before - but this time I am truly committing. I hate knowing that I left it unfinished. I’ve recently read through the comments on the last chapter and seen how many people were disappointed that it left off on a cliffhanger. That would frustrate the hell out of me as a reader. It’s also the most biggest thing I’ve ever written (both in word count and in scale) and I’d rather be able to think of it proudly than with a sense of guilt and failure.
I’ve looked back through the latest chapter and also through my notes. Over three years ago I outlined the rest of the story and decided it needed 21 chapters. With fresh eyes, I’ve decided the story can probably end in about 5 or fewer. It obviously won’t cover everything that I was planning to write. But, I think that plan was the thing that kept me from finishing it. It was too overwhelming. And after 3 years, I think I can safely say that I am never going to write those 21 chapters.
I don’t need to write all that for the story to be finished. I don’t need to tie every loose thread, because there should be a sense that the story continues after the last chapter anyway. It just needs to be satisfying. Certain threads need to be resolved, or at least move to the next stage. At the very least — it needs to not end on a goddamn cliffhanger.
