What happens when writing a book where the ending gets away from you?

When I start writing I already have an idea in my head of how the story will finish. That said, stories have a way of gaining their own control. The characters grow as you are writing them, the story diverges from your initial concept. Innovative ideas spin in your mind and often half to three quarters of the way through a book you have no idea where you are going. You are growing involved with the created characters and the story of them becomes important. At that point you have three choices.

One

You subtly change things and get the tale back to your initial idea of an ending.

Two

you try and think of a suitable new ending that you can guide your story towards or...

Three

Keep writing the story and just hope the ending will occur to you as you reach it.

I favour the third option but that is simply a personal thing, it would not work for everyone and so I would not recommend it.

The other and most obvious option is to plan your book meticulously from inception so you cannot go wrong and need not adapt your tale. Although this is something that I do not do it is a clever idea, especially for someone just beginning to write. lol- one of those “do not do as I do but do what many others say” moments…. Have I got that wrong?

So, there is no simple answer to this conundrum. Do what you wish to do and think about what will work best for your book. After all, what matters in the end is that you have written a book that you are happy with. One you think worthy. Hopefully, others will read it.