Epilogue vs Denouement

After telling my son that I just wrapped up my novel's denouement (dā-ˌnü-ˈmäⁿ), he asked me what was the difference between a denouncement and an epilogue. 

Good question, good kid.

Like a good parent, I told him to look it up in a dictionary. You remember those? Like a tablet, but for word definitions. Better yet, no batteries.

He came back with:

·         Denouement: the final outcome of the main dramatic complication in a literary work

·         EPILOGUE: a concluding section that rounds out the design of a literary work

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary

So both sound similar  –  so much for the low tech solution.  In reaching out to the Internet hive mind, I got a more specific answer.

The denouement is a more immediate wrap up of the aftermath of the story. It's the "yes" to the hero’s proposal, the banishment if the traitor and the adulation of the tribe.

And the modern epilogue is usually clearly labeled and can be weeks, months or years later.  As the end credits roll, we see the final fates of friends and foes play out.

Yet for me, that makes the most succinct of classic endings, “... And they lived happily ever after,” in a gray area.

And while I admire the economy of the phrase, I've never been a fan.  It implies that the rest of their lives are so boring that the people we've rooted for aren't worth visiting again.  

Doesn't leave much room for a sequel.

Ground Floor,Baby!!

I just finished a first draft of a novel. Beyond the endless edits that I can look forward to, there is something mote terrifying.  

The next first draft.

I'm blessed in that my writers blocks come from HOW to write a story, not WHAT to write about.

I'd like to humblebrag about having an overactive imagination and an secret idea factory that throw out shooting star visions like so much metameme mana from heaven. 

Nope.  For me, I keep several books and files around so I can jot down some ideas. I don't judge them, I only record them.  I just wish mine were as cool looking as Guillermo Del Toro's sketchbook. Now there's a walking idea man!

When time opens up in my schedule, I look them over and see if any of them catch my eye. With some distance between inspiration and assessment, I find that my opinion changes over time. A lame dramatic idea might now be a fun comedy piece, or something great is just repeat idea that I covered somewhere else.

I'm not a slave to these note, though. Sometimes a good idea just spins out of a conversation or a daydream. It doesn't hurt that some of these conversations are with other creative people. I'm sure John Grisham finds his muse reading the Daily Business Review.

Me, not so much.

There are times when I take on a challenge and a deadline to see what I come up with. Submitting to an open call for a themed anthology has indefinably make you stretch your imaginary muscles.

And sometimes you have to have faith in yourself to go down the rabbit hole. Sometimes you have to figure out what works by actually putting in some elbow grease and crossing your fingers before you hit the switch.

Finish the book, not the senten–

Hemingway did this shit, so listen up.

Writing in a lot of ways is like exercise or gardening. Even if you enjoy it as a hobby, it's hard get in that harness and start pulling.

Sometimes I'm staring at a whole blank page, and other times it's the white space near the bottom. For me, it's been easier to pick up where I left off than start from scratch.  So what I do is try to leave a sentence half finished so when I get back, there's a jumping off point.

It's tough to do at first. I'm always afraid that I forget where I was going.

The preeminently talented Robert McCammon had this tip. "Someone asked me if I ever get “stuck”. No, I don’t. Here’s my secret: when I finish writing for the day, before I get up from my desk I always type one letter for the next line. The letter is random. D…H…K…B…whatever. So when I come back to work, I begin the next sentence with that letter. Might not work for everyone, but it does work for me." Side Note: If you haven't read Boy's Life, do yourself a favor as a writer and get it now.

So I've done a couple of different things. From dashing off a rough "Where I was going" note to having a "If it's cool enough, I'll remember it tomorrow" attitude.

Sometimes, I just finish off the damn sentence anyway.

The key is that I don't spend another 15 minutes thinking about it. I just go with my gut and close the file out.

For my workshop, I even do this with half a chapter. (So as not to drive my workshop mates crazy, I submit at least a full chapter. So this means I am always half a chapter ahead.) The five days that I'm critiquing my fellow writers' work, my hind brain is working out the rest of the chapter. This has been actually more helpful than the half sentence technique.

Yeah, detailed outlines are not my thing.