Nuts.

[mmerriam]

I have come to the surprising and distressing realization that, as I reach the climax of the novella I'm writing, I have three possible and reasonable endings I could write. Each of them are valid endings and each are quite different in tone. I really don't want to write three different ending to see which I like best. But I may have to do just that very thing.

Comments

[samhenderson.livejournal.com]

This might seem a silly question, but why can't you have all three endings?

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

Two of them are are pretty much opposites, so they wouldn't work at all together. The third might roll up in the first. Maybe. I think I'm going to outline the scene with all three endings and see if that helps me decide what to do.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

1) Yes

2) No

3) Well, at least outline a couple of them just to see how they feel

4) Kalamazoo, MI

5. None of the above.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

OOO! OOO! Kalamazoo!

Wait. No. That's not it.

I think I'm going to outline the scene with all three endings and see if that helps me decide what to do.

[hilarymoonmurph.livejournal.com]

The last time I faced this conundrum, I had four possible endings, and realized that NONE of them worked. That was when ending number five mysteriously surfaced in the middle of the night.

"Honey, it's three in the morning. What are you doing?"

"Writing. I think I finally got my ending!"

"Mmmph. Can't it wait until morning?"

"No."

It was the ending that was meant to be there all along, but I could not see it until I worked my way through the other four.

Write or outline them, and the see which one surprises you the most. And if you get woken up in the middle of the night by an ending, go with that one.

[mojos-lady.livejournal.com]

wow...it's kind of like your God of the multiverse and you've reached the point where based on their actions, the characters diverge at the same point to their separate universes.
Maybe you can think of how each ending changes their worlds?