Writing involves the journey, not the destination

The point of stories is not the punchline, often. It's how you tell the stories, how much fun you're having writing them how much work you're putting into entertaining your readers. If you're half-assing your stories giving away the ending or just giving a flat ending, they know you're not that into entertaining them. They can smell your apathy. It's a little like stripping, as one of the guys says -- it's not about showing everything all at once clinically boringly asking..."any questions", and going back...it's about the tease, about what comes next about if you're even going to see anything. Stories just like stripping are about understanding the other person their hopes and desires their personalities and how they want to be interacting with you. They're not about sex (or about what happens in stories), they're about how you get there and how much of a good time you have on the way. They're about the journey, the journey itself is the story...What you would call 'meat' is an afterthought. It's called the 'heros journey' for a reason after all that's why they don't call it 'heros victory' or 'heros loss' or 'heros lesson' because that's not what the reader's or consumers care about they care about how the hero got to those places and what she had to do and if they can get there too. If you make the journey disappointing to get to an interesting place they'll start wondering if that lame journey was even worth the prize, and start questioning the value of the prize even, even if it's something desirable. Writing is about writing about one's journey, not the destination.