Dear Geist,

What should a novel writer do when she can't get at the perfect ending she planned all along?

—A. Writer, at her desk in Winnipeg

Dear A.,

Our guess is that the ending you planned was perfect in the outline but isn't working for the book you have written. We salute you for not forcing it! You're a different writer now than you were when you started, and that's a good thing. Here is the British writer Rose Tremain on the subject: “In the planning stage of a book, don't plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it.”

—The Editors