Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

When to stop the story line?

+1
−0

Okay everybody. When is the proper time to stop the actual story and move on to a different part of the "world"?

I need to know about what is going to be the proper way to end this story and move on to "pert two". This is a really long story line and I'm thinking of all of this stuff to go in the story, but I don't know when to stop and when to continue.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/28523. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

0 comment threads

1 answer

+0
−0

Your story line should have an arc: a beginning (problem), middle (attempts to fix the problem), and end (resolution of the problem). If you have multiple story lines, each one has its own arc.

There can be an arc which stretches over multiple books. Sometimes each individual book has its own beginning, middle, and end (c.f. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire) underneath a major arc which also concludes in the last book, and sometimes it's one story told in multiple volumes (Lord of the Rings, the Belgariad).

If you have a really long story line, that's fine. It's up to you to decide if it's one story in many books, with only one ending (LOTR, ASOIAF, the Belgariad), or if there smaller arcs within the larger arc (Harry Potter).

The proper time is when the arc is finished. If you don't have an arc, either you didn't plan one or you're a discovery writer and you haven't invented it yet.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

0 comment threads

Sign up to answer this question »