I guess the answer came to me while I was thinking about what I was going to write for today, but I recently wondered: when do you know it's time to end a character's story?
The actual end of the story isn't the end of the character's life. They live on implicitly with the consequences of the initial story to guide them to the end of their imaginary days. With the invention of sequels, trilogies and series, the character's life could hypothetically go on forever. As a writer, when do you decide to stop writing about them?
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle kept writing Sherlock Holmes stories for years, and he lost his drive for them after the first story. He even went to the trouble of killing him off so he wouldn't have to write any more, but fans convinced him to revive the great detective (and thank heaven for that!).
I was only thinking about this because with the characters of my main story, the events that happen to them within that one narrative is rapidly coming to a close. And I've started to imagine what their lives will be like afterwards, when they're all grown up (their ages range from sixteen to eleven). Who marries who, what career paths they choose, that sort of thing. I wrote about 3,000 words based on the daughter of the main character and reading over it, I realised how unnecessary it was.
The story I wrote has a specific focus. It exists within its own secular unity (yeah, I'm just making up phrases now). Anything more I write for the characters is just self-indulgent and won't do anything to add to the quality of the story. If it did, then it would be a part of the story itself.
Oh god. I had a scary moment just then when I pictured me writing about the same four characters forever. Like The Land Before Time.
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