Writing Wednesday: Making Peace With It or How I Learned to Quit Worrying and Write the Ending

A couple of months ago I was writing my Chances Are spinoff Another Chance and I kept running into a problem with the ending.  I had sketched out one ending in my notes.  Then I changed my notes.  Then as I got up to that point in the actual writing I started an ending but didn't like it.

At that point I do what I often do:  I took a drive to clear my head and think the problem through.  Really it all boiled down to thinking, What exactly was the problem?  In the end I realized the problem was that I knew pretty much what I should do but I kept not wanting to do it.

The story revolves around a con man who gets turned into a woman thanks to a drug he was trying to steal.  He's then employed and trained by a covert government agency to steal a very special research project.  Since the main character is a con artist I really didn't think I should have a big actiony ending with a shootout and explosions and such.  The reason then I kept having problems with the ending is I kept trying to think of scenarios where he (she) wouldn't have to really fight the bad guys, usually involving some double-crosses.  But at the end I wanted him (her) to be badly wounded to set up something for the future.

Eventually I just thought to myself, why the hell not do the big actiony ending?  In a way it makes sense since it finally gives him (her) a chance to use a lot of the soldier-type skills the government instructed him (her) on.  Plus it gave me a way to badly injure him (her) to set up something for the sequel.  And who doesn't love a good gunfight and explosion?

So I just sat down and wrote it that way and it pretty much worked out.  Whether readers will like it or not is a whole other thing.  Anyway, the point is sometimes you just have to embrace something you're skeptical about; it might just turn out to work out better than you thought.