Daily Inspiration Quote by John Irving

"I don't begin a novel or a screenplay until I know the ending. And I don't mean only that I have to know what happens. I mean that I have to hear the actual sentences. I have to know what atmosphere the words convey"

John Irving, Novelist

About this Quote

John Irving treats endings as a writer’s true north. He does not simply want a final plot point; he wants the sound of the last sentences, their cadence and breath, the emotional weather they carry. That music determines everything that precedes it. If the ending feels elegiac, the book must lean toward elegy; if it feels mordant or tender, the scenes, jokes, and shocks along the way have to resonate in that key. Language is not a garnish laid on after the story; for him, language is the story’s architecture.

This method suits the novelist Irving is, a Dickens-influenced orchestrator of fate, coincidence, and long arcs. Knowing the closing voice allows him to plant foreshadowing with confidence, to calibrate the mix of comedy and sorrow he is famous for, and to turn apparent digressions into inevitabilities. The last page casts a backward light. It tells him what must be earned and what must be withheld, which secrets to keep humming under the surface, which images to repeat until they chime. He has often spoken about writing the last line first, and about revision as a major phase of his craft; hearing the ending early is the anchor that lets him risk big plots without losing tonal control.

The same discipline carries into his screenplays. Film endings need not only resolution but an aftertaste, a mood that lingers in the viewer’s body. By hearing the sentences, he is also hearing cuts, silences, and the final held shot. For a writer drawn to extreme events and moral complications, tone is the difference between sensationalism and meaning. The ending’s atmosphere governs the book’s ethics.

Some writers discover their endings en route; Irving reverse-engineers the journey. Far from limiting him, that commitment to a specific voice at the end frees him to roam, because every detour can be judged against a clear horizon. The last sentences do not simply conclude; they tune the instrument he has been playing all along.

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Topic	Writing

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About the Author

John Irving (born March 2, 1942) is a Novelist from USA.

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