I was lost. Completely and utterly. It was dark and late, and I desperately needed some rest. But I couldn't rest. I blinked the sleep away as I stared at my computer screen. I had been staring at the same line of text for the past 45 minutes. But I was still lost.
Sure, I was in my home office, I had a warm fire, and I was not uncomfortable in any way, other than the needing-sleep feeling that was nagging at me.I wanted to yell in frustration. I wanted to pound my fist into something ... but the only option I had was my really expensive laptop.
At length, I decided I wasn't going to make any more progress - since I'd already been making so much progress before. So, I admitted defeat. I didn't know what else to do. It was 2:30 in the morning, and I had a meeting with a client a meager 6 hours in the future.
If only I had one thing figured out - something that would have saved me hours of staring and allowed me to move on with my life ... I mean my story.
What was that one thing?
It was a sentence. Something, that I should have done when I started my story but neglected to do because I was too excited to start. I couldn't be bothered with things like planning.
What a waste of time.
But I learned my lesson. Now all of my stories have this sentence written before I start. All of my kiddos' stories have this sentence written too. It's a sentence that can have as much or as little detail as you'd like.
You want to know what it is?
The Ending.
That's it. You need to write a sentence that tells you how your story is going to end.
Simple.
Now, how is your story going to end?