Writing in Reverse

Finishing My First Book

About a week into June or more, I wrote and posted chapter 88 of Island Rush.  And directly after, I was going on a two week trip to Indiana with my grandma to visit my uncle.  And during that time I was gone, I needed to decide what to do for the ending of Island Rush. Not to mention, whether I was going to do a sequel or not.

I had no Internet the whole time I was there - which drove me mad but at the same time it was kind of nice being forced out of the option of writing.  I would always pick writing as a first when I have free time.  But at the same time, without it, I could enjoy my trip a little more - which wasn't the best considered I spent a lot of the time cleaning my uncle's house and trying to avoid his cat but it was fun either way I suppose.

Though I didn't have the option to type while I was there, my thoughts revolved around what I was going to do.  I pondered it the entire time I was there and couldn't seem to decide.  I mean, I came up with an entire plan on what would happen if I made a sequel and it was just inviting me to do it!  At the same time, it just felt wrong to do.  I spent nearly a year writing Island Rush. If I wrote a sequel, that would be another year when I knew what would be best was if I moved on into new territory, explored something besides what I was starting to notice was the sloppy mess that was Island Rush. 

I wasn't that excited at all for Island Rush to be done really but in the end, I decided that was what needed to happen.  I went back and forth on it even after that decision but I forced myself to stick to it.  If I was spending another year on a book, it needed to be different, involve different elements and be a bit more challenging in order for me to expand as a writer.  And that meant returning to what was my first story I came up with when joining this site.

When I got home, I got to work on the last chapter of the book.  And it was incredibly hard for me to do because since I wasn't making a sequel, I wanted to share everything to how their relationship survived, how they got to where they are now, and ultimately I wanted to show how all of their issues played out.  And in the last chapter, their last huge issue became solved: Janice finally getting pregnant.

However, because I was going back and showing everything that has happened in the past nine years, it meant doing something that was very uncomfortable for me: being brief. 

The chapter included a flashback scene to Casey showing Janice the house he bought and then directly after, proposing to her.  I really would have loved to spend some time on it but I couldn't just for the fact that I needed to wrap it all up. 

Being that it was a flashback, I felt that if I got too detailed, people would forget about that.  Forget that was a flashback because it was key for me to show that this was occurring many years later - when Janice is 26 and not years prior to when she was being proposed to.  So I was brief and it really bothered me but I felt flashbacks weren't meant to be too detailed when there was so much happening within a flashback like this one.  Because if I described and wrote out that flashback in detail, it would have probably been two chapters long and I didn't want that; that was getting off track to what my point of the flash back was: just catching everyone up.  I also figured if I lingered too long by having her reflect to the past, it would look quite messy.  It was hard enough to jump ahead so suddenly like nine years.  I didn't want a flashback to a time between the time the majority of the story was wrote to where I jumped to at the last chapter.

So that's why that was kept short.  The rest I tried to pace out fairly the same with the rest of the book.  But beyond pacing was the actual content. 

I didn't want them to have the happy ending most romance stories do on Wattpad.  So, even though they did concur everything they faced, it was important for me to revisit how it was done.  Because that way, it shows it wasn't a perfect happy ending.  They still have money problems for example.  It's something so many people face and there is just no getting more realistic than that; it was something that made Casey and Janice made real to me over all.  Having a good ending but it was very rough getting there and though issues were resolved, things like money would still be a minor thing to deal with. 

Another thing was to leave it where we wouldn't know if she could have other children or not.  The point was that she got pregnant and though  they wanted three kids, they need to be thankful she just got pregnant with one because it was a very hard thing to do. 

They also went through a year or more of trying to stay away from each other to avoid attention from the media, they both still needed to recover with what happened with her dad and brother too.  Casey's job started to get harder, they couldn't have the privacy they once had with society, and there were even a few small bumps at their wedding as Janice explained.

All this shows that even after what they faced, there was more and it took a lot for them to get where they ended up - and even then it wasn't perfect.  Nothing can be perfect and that was an element I liked with the ending. 

Of course, even after I wrote it, I felt uneasy.  It wasn't satisfying enough for me.  Before I wrote the chapter, it was thought over for a long time on just what would happen in the chapter.  I had the idea of the book ending with their last problem ending.  And though, as I said, it wasn't the perfect happy ending, it was expected I think.  I mean, the last chapter you find out a lot and that includes the fact that they got married and were now having a baby.  I was satisfied with how they got to that point just not the fact that it was an expected ending I think. 

However, there didn't seem to be anything I could do about that. I wanted it to end with their last issue resolved and that had to mean an expected ending.  It was either that or nothing and after deep thought, I didn't see a better way to do it. 

I am still not satisfied with the ending.  But it was the best I could do with what I was working with in my opinion.  Because since I decided against a sequel, I needed to show their ending by jumping ahead maybe a bit too far and covering a bit too much.  So pace was what screwed me up a bit but mostly it was that I was ending it in an unsatisfying way for me even if I knew that's how I wanted things to work out for them.  Hell, maybe I was just uneasy over being brief throughout the flashback.  It honestly could be a number of things but  I did what I could.

I did learn something from that ending though: don't decide against a sequel at the last second.  Because chapter 89 will be your result.  I was stuck and it was my own fault for not being prepared.  I leaned that was only a few of many things that I would discover that made Island Rush as messy as it was, despite whether the story was 'good' or not.