How can you begin a short story without knowing how it ends? (Quora)

There is a long-standing division of practice between the planners (or plotters) and the pantsters (or improvisers) of the writing world.

The plotters are probably better placed to provide standard submissions to publishers who like specific types of story, written in ways that they know their customers are happy with. In other words, plotters can write consistent work to a consistent pattern which they know is going to sell. They are good at commercial writing.

I belong to the second group, which means I usually begin a story with no real idea of how it is going to end. Indeed, one of my main motivations to keep going is to find out how it ends. Sometimes I need to go back and adjust earlier bits of the story so as to foreshadow the end that I arrived at rather than the one I may have once thought I was working towards.

Not all original work is good. Sometimes different is worse. But every now and again, a pantster will come up with something innovatory, original, and good. And it won’t sell.

All too rarely, an original work will get past the publishers’ submissions filter system known as slush readers (or assistant editors), who are usually schooled in conformity and tend to reject submissions that don’t fit their employers’ known preferences.

If a pantster story reaches an editor who is willing to take risks, it has a chance of publication. That editor may even flag your work to ensure that future submissions also get through to him.

And very, very rarely, one of these stories will become so popular that it makes your name and a star is born.

In other words, if you shoot for the stars you probably won’t hit them, but you’ll have fun trying. If you need your writing to pay the bills, you should probably write what you already know is going to sell.