I can write anything if I know the end.
Fact is, as much of a pantser as I am, I always have something in mind. Not necessarily a plot for the whole book, not every stop along the way, certainly. But the second I start writing a chapter, my first thought is about its end.
Each chapter in a novel is a self-contained entity. It will tell part of a larger story, of course, and it might very well be incomprehensible if read out of context. But it is its own thing, one part of a story that isn't what came before it and isn't what's about to happen. It is this moment in the structure. As a writer you live in that moment. Each time.
Given that, the writer thinks about what will keep the reader involved beyond this one segment. What plot point is going to keep the pages turning when the reader hits it at the end of the chapter? In short: What's the story point that's going to progress the plot in this chapter?
That's the end of the chapter, and that's what you're aiming for as you write.
Once you've grasped that concept, that all you have to do is find the end of the chapter, any claim of "Writer's Block" is easily dismissed. You know where you're going. How you get there is your own business. String enough of them together and the ending of the story as a whole will present itself to you at the proper moment.
Coming a week from tomorrow is a little tome Minotaur Books and I like to call Dog Dish of Doom, the first novel in the Agent to the Paws mystery series. Library Journal called it "hilarious," Publishers Weekly said "nifty" and Booklist used the word "humorous" because, well, that's how Booklist talks. As it was being written, there were many moments along the way where the end of a chapter had to be identified in advance. And the gift of this process is that it can lead to some surprises for the writer.
In Chapter 12, for example (starting on p. 150), I knew precisely what the ending was because a major plot point was coming up and I'd prepared for it. This comes from the screenwriting days when I would look for a midpoint to the story, something that turns the whole thing on its ear and keeps the audience (reader) engaged for the second half. But in Chapter 15 (p. 180), one of the big action set pieces occurs and I had no idea going in what it was going to be. Our heroine Kay Powell is going to confront people who have been doing bad stuff (you didn't think I was giving away plot points, did you?) and there was going to be something spectacular, I knew. It wasn't until I started writing the chapter and considered the ending that the big sequence could be defined. I sort of like it. Maybe you will too. There's no chance I'm about to give it away, so buy the damn book if you want to know. It's explosive; I'll tell you that.
The point is that sometimes you have a planned chapter end and sometimes you need to consider it just as you start the chapter. It's the goal you're searching for, the thing that pushes your overall story ahead and teases your reader into staying up just a few minutes longer to read on. If you can intrigue yourself as a writer, there's a decent chance you can do the same for the lovely people who put down their hard-earned cash to read your words.
Consider the ending. It'll get you where you want to go.
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