Writing the Climax

I have always had one very crucial weakness to my writing: I love beginnings. I love writing beginnings, I love reading beginnings, and sometimes a beginning is all I need to satisfy me.

That’s not always true, of course. And there is nothing better than I book you can finish, close up, and say, “Wow, that is going to stick with me.” I love a climax with a twist, as long as its a plausible twist. I think real life is full of more twists than straight stories.

But oh do I ever have a terrible time writing them. For one, I get bogged down because I think it’ll be too short, but then it keeps getting longer and longer and longer until it’s significantly longer than any other piece of my work in progress. I worry it’ll turn out like Prisoner of Azkaban. The space of three hours (times two) taking up a third of a book.

But what I forget when I’m writing is that that’s okay. Would I want the ending of Azkaban to be any shorter than it is? No, of course not.

What it comes down to is turning my brain off. My brain resists the end, the effort it will take, and what will be involved. I just have to turn it off.

Right now, in case that wasn’t obvious, I’m jumping into the climax of my book, worrying that it’ll come together too smoothly and that my characters are going to seem stupid, maybe I’ve already been too obvious, etc. etc. Really, I think I just need to write it, stop over-thinking it, and let my protagonist do what she’s going to do. She’s always more interesting when I’m not scrutinizing while I’m writing her.

Over thinking. It’s a very, very bad habit of mine.