: Re: How important is it to know the end before the writing the beginning? One of the Rules of writing indicates that knowing the end before the beginning is critical to writing. Which I find odd,

@Frith254

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You give rules too much credit ;)

None of these rules should be treated as being one of the Commandments. In your mind you have to add a "... but think for yourself" to each rule, because maybe for your current situation it is best to break/ignore the rule.

You can see that also at the comments to this particular rule. To cite Standback here:

A good modification to this would be: once you know the ending, fix up the beginning to match.

The good thing of knowing the ending is having an aim. People tend to have it easier writing when they see their goal in front of them. Also it is useful to keep the consistency in your story. But you can fix consistency afterward. It's just more work.

That does not mean you can save work if you follow this rule. Because if a known ending is blocking your creativity and you are not able to write something, then the rule is not helping, it's sabotaging your work.

So do whatever works for you. The most important aspect of writing is (you would never have guessed that) writing. If you can write your story the way you are doing it now, then keep going. Don't ponder, write!

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