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odd_buttonsWhen I think of exellent endings, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
inkpirate's "The Night Season" leaps to mind.
*
The following is an excerpt from Part III of the book Making Shapely Fiction, by Jerome Stern. The first two parts are very much worth reading as well. The book is available in paperback.
Endings
In some older fiction the ending was characterized by rewards, punishments, and exciting revelations. In contemporary fiction the tendency is to avoid surprises and symmetry and to recognize that the story must tell itself all the way through.
Endings in short stories are often muted. The story has already made its point or it's not successful. The principle of physics made immortal by Archimedes, "If I had a lever long enough and a place to stand, I could move the world," is instructive. The closer and closer you get to the ending, the more weight every word has, so that by the time you get to the last several words each one carries an enormous meaning. A single gesture or image at the end can outweigh all that has gone before. Choose each word carefully -- even simple words like dark or down, light or up drastically affect the sense of the ending and therefore the entire story. Anything revelatory or portentous at the end of the story is very heavy indeed. Heavy-handed, in fact, is the way it's likely to come out.
In beginning the story certain tensions, ideas, and characters have been launched. These themes then fly in intricate formations. The ending doesn't have to provide a surprise. All it has to do is land safely.
Some ingenious writers deploy a number of different themes or characters. Readers are puzzled -- these parts seem so disparate, what do they have to do with each other? The ending is the magical moment when the balls thrown in the air all end up in the hand of the writer, and we see, ah, it's one story after all Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People" starts by depicting two ignorant older women. Halfway through, the focus of the story moves to an itinerant Bible salesman and the educated daughter of one of the women. Not until we hear the comments of the older women in the last two paragraphs do we understand how the story is all of a piece. But it's not a surprise; it's not an introduction of new information -- it's a safe landing. It lets us see what has been there all along.
There's a classic theater story that tells us something very important about endings. An experienced writer was brought in to watch and then revise the ending of a troublesome play that was in rehearsal. "The trouble with the last act," the writer said, "is the first act."
At first that sounds as if he was saying that the whole play was a mess. But there's another meaning in that phrase that's particularly useful for writers of fiction. And ending that seems unsatisfactory might actually be fine. The trouble with the ending might be that the beginning or the middle doesn't set up the ending. A problem scene may not be a problem because of the way it is written, but because of the way some preceding scene is written. The revision of the ending might need to be carried out back in the beginning of the story.
Writers of novels sometimes nervously feel that endings must be very emotional or violent, and go for melodramatic effects. They fear that if there is no major physical confrontation, no grand scene, readers will say, "Is that all? Have you taken me all this way for this?" But if the journey's been worth going on you don't need an earthquake to make it interesting. Many "spectacular" endings seem false to the landscape of the rest of the book. It might be best to stay true to the terms of the fictional world that you made.
Another unsatisfying ending occurs when a writer keeps implying that something really big is going to be revealed. The problem then is that the writer has to live up to it. Otherwise the ending is anticlimactic. The longer you withhold a secret the more likely it is to be disappointing. That's what makes many mystery novels ultimately unfulfilling. What you find out in the end turns out to be something you guessed, or didn't guess-- but despite the excitement, it doesn't make much real difference one way or another.
The end of a piece of fiction might be an ambivalent stare or a shattering showdown. What matters is keeping your work true to itself. You start writing the ending when you write your first word.
See Beginnings, Catharsis, Poetic Justice.
inkpirate's "The Night Season" leaps to mind.*
The following is an excerpt from Part III of the book Making Shapely Fiction, by Jerome Stern. The first two parts are very much worth reading as well. The book is available in paperback.
Endings
In some older fiction the ending was characterized by rewards, punishments, and exciting revelations. In contemporary fiction the tendency is to avoid surprises and symmetry and to recognize that the story must tell itself all the way through.
Endings in short stories are often muted. The story has already made its point or it's not successful. The principle of physics made immortal by Archimedes, "If I had a lever long enough and a place to stand, I could move the world," is instructive. The closer and closer you get to the ending, the more weight every word has, so that by the time you get to the last several words each one carries an enormous meaning. A single gesture or image at the end can outweigh all that has gone before. Choose each word carefully -- even simple words like dark or down, light or up drastically affect the sense of the ending and therefore the entire story. Anything revelatory or portentous at the end of the story is very heavy indeed. Heavy-handed, in fact, is the way it's likely to come out.
In beginning the story certain tensions, ideas, and characters have been launched. These themes then fly in intricate formations. The ending doesn't have to provide a surprise. All it has to do is land safely.
Some ingenious writers deploy a number of different themes or characters. Readers are puzzled -- these parts seem so disparate, what do they have to do with each other? The ending is the magical moment when the balls thrown in the air all end up in the hand of the writer, and we see, ah, it's one story after all Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People" starts by depicting two ignorant older women. Halfway through, the focus of the story moves to an itinerant Bible salesman and the educated daughter of one of the women. Not until we hear the comments of the older women in the last two paragraphs do we understand how the story is all of a piece. But it's not a surprise; it's not an introduction of new information -- it's a safe landing. It lets us see what has been there all along.
There's a classic theater story that tells us something very important about endings. An experienced writer was brought in to watch and then revise the ending of a troublesome play that was in rehearsal. "The trouble with the last act," the writer said, "is the first act."
At first that sounds as if he was saying that the whole play was a mess. But there's another meaning in that phrase that's particularly useful for writers of fiction. And ending that seems unsatisfactory might actually be fine. The trouble with the ending might be that the beginning or the middle doesn't set up the ending. A problem scene may not be a problem because of the way it is written, but because of the way some preceding scene is written. The revision of the ending might need to be carried out back in the beginning of the story.
Writers of novels sometimes nervously feel that endings must be very emotional or violent, and go for melodramatic effects. They fear that if there is no major physical confrontation, no grand scene, readers will say, "Is that all? Have you taken me all this way for this?" But if the journey's been worth going on you don't need an earthquake to make it interesting. Many "spectacular" endings seem false to the landscape of the rest of the book. It might be best to stay true to the terms of the fictional world that you made.
Another unsatisfying ending occurs when a writer keeps implying that something really big is going to be revealed. The problem then is that the writer has to live up to it. Otherwise the ending is anticlimactic. The longer you withhold a secret the more likely it is to be disappointing. That's what makes many mystery novels ultimately unfulfilling. What you find out in the end turns out to be something you guessed, or didn't guess-- but despite the excitement, it doesn't make much real difference one way or another.
The end of a piece of fiction might be an ambivalent stare or a shattering showdown. What matters is keeping your work true to itself. You start writing the ending when you write your first word.
See Beginnings, Catharsis, Poetic Justice.