Writing the Ending First: How to Build a Satisfying Story (with Doug Hall)
Unable to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Failed to remove from Wish List.
Adding to library failed
Unable to follow podcast
Unable to unfollow podcast
Writing the Ending First: How to Build a Satisfying Story (with Doug Hall)
-
Narrated by:
-
By:
Could writing your ending first help you build a more satisfying story? In this episode of Fiction Writer's Toolshed, I talk with screenwriter and author Doug Hall about choosing your destination before writing toward it.
After reaching roughly page 80 of a 100-page screenplay without knowing how to end it, Doug changed his approach. He explains how starting with an ending helps him develop character conflict, dialogue, theme, and the midpoint-- and build toward a payoff that feels unexpected but earned.
Doug also shares how a bet led him into screenwriting, how he wrote the original draft of Leprechaun in the Hood in five days, and why the ending you start with can still change.
Whether you're writing a novel, short story, or screenplay, this conversation offers a way to think about how the story you're building supports the ending you want to deliver.
This episode is for you if you have questions like:
- Should you write your story's ending first?
- How do you write a satisfying ending?
- How can knowing the ending help you plot a story?
- How do you make a twist ending feel earned?
- How can an ending guide character development and conflict?
- What makes a story's midpoint interesting?
- Can you change your ending after you start writing?
