I have many ideas that can potentialy make a good novel to write.
Almost everything is ready in my mind : the charachters, the setting for the story, the beginning of what could be a plot (altough, I'm not too much in the classic idea of a plot)
But...
While in a short-story, the quickness of the story line development and the area of possibities for ending the story is large and various (for example, I frequently use sudden and steep ends) I find the mechanics of a novel more difficult !
It's a bigger machine, with a greater inertia force, so it's harder to stop all this stuff you placed on the rails... must I decelerate to manage a smooth finishing, or let it go crescendo, but a crescendo ending in what ? And will it sounds good ?
I feel that in some cases It could be something less convergent than in a short-tory ending, more open but, I still not find how to make it !
Reply to Jonathan Hopkins.
My comment about avoiding a epilogue was half-in-jest.
'Avoid writing an epilogue, because that’s the beginning of book two in your series.'
I have to disagree. Collins Online says it's 'a short postscript to any literary work, such as a brief description of the fates of the characters in a novel'. In that case it's the wind-down after the end. The presentation scene in 'Return of the Jedi' if you like.
I like epilogues. You can finish the story with a real high and let the reader's heart rate slowly decelerate over a couple of pages. I've written two novels that use them so far, and plan the same strategy in the third.
But then, I like prologues too :)
Simon P.Clark : about the explosion with fizzles, yeah, totaly (I have a visual way for creating, so every visual metaphor make sens for me :) )
I didn't see the X-Men prequel, but one other movie that was sloppy is Dark Knight Rises, with improbable sequences accumulating as the story was approaching the end and an unsound finishing !
Victoria Whithear : I agree on what you're saying about subplots, really difficult to organize this, so ending them one by one like they was short-stories, letting some for the fizzles and finishing the main line in something suspended in time, like the persistent hissing in ears after the explosion... if that makes sens )