Book-ending My Book

HI PEEPS. BLACK FRIDAY KID HERE.
So, I have an announcement to make: I have finished my novel. Before I have FINISHED it.
I have a beginning. I have an end. Now I have something to build the rest around.
My Pokemans. Let me show you them:
The various projects of mine I have started and stopped ever since I decided to write a full-length novel two years ago began with the bits and pieces that I could see. The easiest parts to see were usually the beginning and the end. And so that is how I work all of my stories, usually. I write what I can see and then I continue to pry, using my imagination and my pen to slash through and see what connects all of it, why everything is the way it is. This is what I dub "The Thomas Harris Method. "
In the introduction to a paperback reprint of his classic novel Red Dragon, Harris writes, "To write a novel, you begin with what you can see and then you add what came before and what came after. Here in the village of Rich, Mississippi...I could see the investigator Will Graham in the home of the victim family, watching the dead family's home movies. I did not know at the time who was committing the crimes. I pushed to find out, to see what came before and what came after. I went through the home, the crime scene, in the dark with Will and could see no more and no less than he could see."
After I read the introduction, that was what stuck with me. Really, to me, that is the only way to work as a writer. Don't push TOO hard. Only write what you can see in your story, and let the rest come as it may. To this day I have a few bits and pieces saved that I cranked out during extremely-boring down time that I have never expanded upon, because I simply can't see much more happening at this point. I've tried to FORCE it out, and never has it worked. Each piece will see the day when I DO expand upon them, however. These short sketches will become bases for future projects. They are, after all, secretly ready-made stories.
So this week I wrote the ending. (Yes, it is happy.)
This weekend and during the course of next week, I will be expanding on my characters. What are Sheldon Wellday (my counterpart) and Jeff Gibson (my friend's counterpart) like? Certainly I don't plan on making them the same as my friend and I. I don't know what we're like anyway.
But I CAN come up with one-word descriptions. Wellday is geeky. Gibson is not. I.E., he reacts with facepalmin' goodness, or downright anger, to Wellday's geek moments. Over the weekend, I will expand them. I want them to have clear distinctions. I want them to be DEFINED by something. That's the beauty of characters. Also, it helps me to write dialogue in tune with who is speaking, of course.
Next Friday I will post on this. I will also update you on how I am advancing as far as the story itself, and throw some more characters at ye.

Good night and good luck (Edward R. Murrow pun intended) on your respective projects. And happy weekends. :D