Let’s say our lives are like stories in a book, but instead of being typed in ink, they are written in graphite. You can add to them or erase them. Overall, you can completely change them. The future of the story can be permanent, but it’s most likely temporary.

Everyday is like a sentence, and there are multiple ways a sentence can end. Either exciting, overwhelming, confusing, uncertain, lacking something, or straightforward. The list goes on. A story, our story, can be can be a sentence, a paragraph, a page, or several chapters long. Even more than that. And there are always going to be times in our stories where the going gets tough and we fight the urge to end it, then and there.

Those who are weak give in. They put a period at that sentence, close their notebook labeled Life, and walk away. Sometimes, they don’t even have the audacity to end it. Sometimes they just cut their story off in the middle of a sentence, ultimately leaving their readers to wonder how the story could have ended.

But, those who are strong are the ones who persevere. Instead of a period, they put a semi colon at the end of that sentence and finish their story. No matter if the ending was happy or not, at least it actually ended.

The fact is that every story has hills and valleys. And the best ones have them in abundance. They have ups, downs, rights, lefts, Norths, souths, twists and turns. This is what keeps you reading. The satisfied feeling you get when the character survives the climb up the mountain. And no matter how certain you are that you figure out the ending, it ends in a way that was totally unexpected.

  Don’t plan out your story because it’s not always your choice how it turns out. If you do plan it, there is a high probability that it’s ending will feel unfinished and unsatisfying.

The moral of this story? Take your story one word at a time. Oh, and plan to be surprised.