The End Can Be Rewritten (04/12)
The title of today’s post is paraphrasing the quasi-motto, quasi-cardinal rule of popular culture’s favourite time-traveller: The Doctor! (Famous for being the flag-waving poster child of geek chic, long-running tv shows, and proof that re-casting a lead role CAN work.)
In the Doctor’s case, he applies the maxim to Time, that abstract force that marches to the beat of a Swiss, wrist-adorned drum. (I’m mostly convinced that the Swiss invented Time.) But as I telegraphed with my paraphrasing, Time is not my current issue: rather, it’s endings. The further and further I dove into the mystery of Port Amble, the more I am finding my currently planned final chapter to be missing something. It’s a little difficult to explain this fully, but there is most definitely something I’ve left out, forming an odd-shaped hole in the narrative.
I have accounted for all the loose ends. I have a climatic showdown. I have an end point for the characters that require them (ooh, cagey, no-spoiler language). I have a lovely, murky epilogue that allows me to lay on thick the grim, dark prose I so love, to paint a final statement of chills and unease. So what is it that’s missing? I cannot quite put my finger on it.
What it could be, is something that is not yet missing. What I mean by that is that there is a while to go, and maybe there is an assumed element that I know will be in there, but doesn’t get credited in my plan? This unstated facet may require its own resolution, and thus be currently unplanned.
Or maybe I simply need to look back at today’s title, and take it at it’s very logical face value – the ending CAN be rewritten. If something is missing, or wrong with it, simply change it. Mess with it. Just outright delete words and put in new ones.
Of course, I should probably write it at least once, first.
Thoughts In The Key Of N 
.. it was all a dream! 😮