I was thinking about story endings - basically, for two reasons. First, I have been taking a break from writing my novel for a few weeks because I felt like the ending wasn't lining up strongly enough, and second, because I just finished a short story. And then after I'd submitted it for critique, grabbed it back for some last minute edits to the ending.
I have a tendency to rush endings in first draft. I'm sure people get my story drafts and say, "I'd better take a close look at the ending." I think this is because it takes me so long to write a story that by the time I reach the end I'm going, "get me to the end of this thing!!!" This means, of course, that I do twice as much work on it in the revisions stage.
I'm an outliner, so I generally have a basic idea of what needs to happen for my ending. My Allied Systems stories are puzzle stories, so at a certain point somebody has to go "aha!" Aha moments can happen at any point in a story, but in these stories the aha moment is usually at the climax. I don't mind if readers figure out the solution before my characters, but it's ideal if they arrive there at roughly the same time, so I have to take the puzzle pieces and distribute them through the story, with the last couple arriving right at the end. I then have to make sure that the aha character doesn't sit down and explain at length the solution to the puzzle, because that would be - well, annoying. I'm not writing Sherlock Holmes here. The most important way for me to get around that is to make sure I'm considering the emotional impact of the puzzle solution. In my current story, the solution to the puzzle does not make Adrian Preston very happy at all - so when I went back to tweak it, I changed the aha moment from an explanation to a questioning sequence. Less like "and here's how it works, folks" and more like "oh, darn, can it really work like this? Let's test..."
I also like to make sure that every major character has something to contribute to the ending. Otherwise my readers would be sitting there going "what happened to Lydia?" The core protagonist (Adrian) has to be the one making the major moves - in this case, solving the linguistic and cultural mystery - but because his relationship with his wife Qing has been at issue, the ending has to bring her together with him - and because Lydia the activist friend was the one who started the worst of the trouble, she really has to bring something of value to the end solution so we don't feel angry with her. In the case of this story, "The Liars," she causes something of a revolution, and I think it's deserved.
The question of the core protagonist making the major moves to bring about the ending of the story is a really critical one. I'll say it again: the core protagonist must be the one to solve the problem and cause the ending. This was one of the things I felt was missing in the outline for the novel ending I had planned. I knew that Tagret brought about the final twist at the end, but I had a feeling that he wasn't really behaving as an actor/agent driving the story toward its conclusion in sections leading up to that twist. This had bells of alarm going off in my head until I took a step back and was able to re-outline.
Here's the thing. I've seen this happen even in otherwise fantastic published books, where the author's desire to make the ending MEGA HUGE ends up causing the protagonist to get pushed to one side in his/her significance to the events of the ending. And while the ending remains mega huge, I find its emotional significance to a reader is diminished by this. In the case of trilogies I've read, the constant need to up the stakes in each book makes the problem of sidelining the protagonist even trickier as the end of the first, the second, the third book comes along. I was working with Janice Hardy on Darkfall some months ago, and I remember having this very conversation with her, because her initial draft had drifted off of Nya as its primary driver when it reached the end. Needless to say, she and I and other critiquers put our heads to this problem rather assiduously, and ended up with a better solution that kept Nya right at the center of things (while still satisfying the need for mega huge).
In the case of Tagret in "For Love, For Power," I knew where and how he would take action to achieve the love he was seeking, but I hadn't yet grasped precisely what the piece of power was that he would wield in order to bring about the events of the ending. (I suppose you can see the pattern here: every major character in this novel has both a love arc and a power arc.) Once I realized that he had a piece of knowledge about his brother's weaknesses that no one else possessed, I saw how he could use that against his brother in an escalating sequence that would get us to the climax of the story.
I always like to feel that at the end of a story, each major character gets something he/she "deserves." It's the way we like to see the hero(ine) triumph and the bad guy get his/her comeuppance. When you've got more than one major character, you should consider how to fit into the climax something that each one specially deserves. A character who has been defined by a relationship with family through the book should have some family-related personal twist at the end. A character who has struggled with a dependence on someone or something else should be able to achieve a change of some sort in that dependence (as when Rulii was partially liberated from his addiction at the end of "Cold Words"). A character who has been filled with hate and had to act against his own worse judgment through the whole story should be able to achieve a resolution that changes the nature of that hate (for better or worse!) at the end. Paying attention to this sort of detail for each character will make the ending more resonant and satisfying for readers.
It's something to think about.
Showing posts with label story endings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label story endings. Show all posts
Monday, July 18, 2011
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Twists on conversational endings
Have you ever noticed the endings of conversations - particularly telephone conversations? Typically you get to the point where one person decides the conversation should come to an end, and so they say something to advertise that they're getting ready to go. It could be something like, "You know, I have to run," if the people know each other well. If they know each other less well it might be something like "I'm sure you're very busy and I shouldn't keep you." Or maybe one of the people talking will pick up on a piece of topic that the other person had mentioned about something happening in their future: "Well, have fun at the picnic!" or "Good luck with that project, then."
Step two in the process is that the other person has to reply with a piece of talk that will acknowledge that the conversation is about to end. "Oh, sorry, I'll let you go," would be one option. For specific future events the person could say, "Thanks, I think I will/I'll do my best/I'll see you soon/I'll talk to you soon." If this turn does not acknowledge the conversation-ending move, however, the person's attempt to close the conversation will fall flat. The person who has to leave may feel ignored and sucked into a conversation when they'd rather be somewhere else. The less direct the ending move (especially with language learners), however, the more likely the conversation partner won't notice it. By contrast, if at this point the conversation partner simply says "Okay, bye!" their farewell will come across as needlessly abrupt.
Typically after the ending move has been acknowledged, you will find another turn by the person who initiated the conversation-ending moves. This will be something like "Take care!" or "Yeah, see you!" This move is basically without content and serves only to confirm the fact that this person has no further topics to propose and the conversation can end safely. The other person then responds to this with "You too" or something similar, indicating that indeed, he/she has no further content to propose either. This is the spot where if someone has forgotten to say something, it may be introduced.
Following these moves (social/phatic moves) that are simply redundant indicators that it's okay to end the conversation, that's when we get the actual goodbyes. A goodbye is a speech act that functions to end the conversation. The moves of the last turn ("take care") can sometimes be interpreted or used as goodbyes, but for myself, I never quite feel like I've really put a button on the conversation without an official "bye!" This is another possible complication. Proposing a new topic at this point is a bit more unexpected and sometimes people will actually apologize for it (where they are less likely to earlier).
Those of you familiar with Instant Message conversations may notice that you often have to do this goodbye sequence twice. The delay in IM chats introduces the (relatively likely) possibility that you will initiate this sequence of ending turns while someone else is still typing topic related stuff. In this circumstance, you end up with a point of conversational ambiguity. The person trying to initiate an ending sequence has the option of responding directly to the ongoing topic and then adding on a re-initiation of the ending sequence. Another option is for him/her not to respond to the existing topic material at all (but this might be considered abrupt). Sometimes the person who was typing topic information will simply drop the topic and reply with an acknowledgment of the initiating turn. Sometimes another odd option occurs and you end up conducting two entirely separate ending turn sequences, one which follows on to the first initiation of the ending sequence, and another which follows onto the remaining topic material that the second person had been typing!
By this time, this has happened to me so much that I'm starting to think there must be some kind of a story here. Or maybe not a story core element, but something I could add onto another context. I wonder if one could write a story with a split ending and have it be plausible. Hmmm...
Another point where this might be relevant to dialogue is that phatic talk, the empty stuff with which we maintain social relationships, may or may not be important to your story. If the smoothness of the relationship between the two people speaking is less important than the information conveyed, leaving the last few turns of talk out of the dialogue is certainly fine. However, if the relationship is important and you're going to play with some of the twists mentioned above to create tension, it might be to your advantage to pursue the conversation all the way through to the end.
Just sharing my thoughts, as usual!
Step two in the process is that the other person has to reply with a piece of talk that will acknowledge that the conversation is about to end. "Oh, sorry, I'll let you go," would be one option. For specific future events the person could say, "Thanks, I think I will/I'll do my best/I'll see you soon/I'll talk to you soon." If this turn does not acknowledge the conversation-ending move, however, the person's attempt to close the conversation will fall flat. The person who has to leave may feel ignored and sucked into a conversation when they'd rather be somewhere else. The less direct the ending move (especially with language learners), however, the more likely the conversation partner won't notice it. By contrast, if at this point the conversation partner simply says "Okay, bye!" their farewell will come across as needlessly abrupt.
Typically after the ending move has been acknowledged, you will find another turn by the person who initiated the conversation-ending moves. This will be something like "Take care!" or "Yeah, see you!" This move is basically without content and serves only to confirm the fact that this person has no further topics to propose and the conversation can end safely. The other person then responds to this with "You too" or something similar, indicating that indeed, he/she has no further content to propose either. This is the spot where if someone has forgotten to say something, it may be introduced.
Following these moves (social/phatic moves) that are simply redundant indicators that it's okay to end the conversation, that's when we get the actual goodbyes. A goodbye is a speech act that functions to end the conversation. The moves of the last turn ("take care") can sometimes be interpreted or used as goodbyes, but for myself, I never quite feel like I've really put a button on the conversation without an official "bye!" This is another possible complication. Proposing a new topic at this point is a bit more unexpected and sometimes people will actually apologize for it (where they are less likely to earlier).
Those of you familiar with Instant Message conversations may notice that you often have to do this goodbye sequence twice. The delay in IM chats introduces the (relatively likely) possibility that you will initiate this sequence of ending turns while someone else is still typing topic related stuff. In this circumstance, you end up with a point of conversational ambiguity. The person trying to initiate an ending sequence has the option of responding directly to the ongoing topic and then adding on a re-initiation of the ending sequence. Another option is for him/her not to respond to the existing topic material at all (but this might be considered abrupt). Sometimes the person who was typing topic information will simply drop the topic and reply with an acknowledgment of the initiating turn. Sometimes another odd option occurs and you end up conducting two entirely separate ending turn sequences, one which follows on to the first initiation of the ending sequence, and another which follows onto the remaining topic material that the second person had been typing!
By this time, this has happened to me so much that I'm starting to think there must be some kind of a story here. Or maybe not a story core element, but something I could add onto another context. I wonder if one could write a story with a split ending and have it be plausible. Hmmm...
Another point where this might be relevant to dialogue is that phatic talk, the empty stuff with which we maintain social relationships, may or may not be important to your story. If the smoothness of the relationship between the two people speaking is less important than the information conveyed, leaving the last few turns of talk out of the dialogue is certainly fine. However, if the relationship is important and you're going to play with some of the twists mentioned above to create tension, it might be to your advantage to pursue the conversation all the way through to the end.
Just sharing my thoughts, as usual!
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Some Thoughts on Endings
There are a couple things to keep in mind about writing endings. One is that they must be prepared for properly. The other is that they can't be entirely expected.
These two things can actually work against one another, because if you've prepared throughout your manuscript for a particular ending, people will generally expect it. You then need to defeat their expectations. So if you reach the ending and experience reader protest, then there are two possible sources for a solution.
1. Change the preparation
2. Change the ending to beat the expectations
I've done #1 quite a lot: discovered that readers felt an ending I wrote was unsupported - that is to say, not given a proper foundation - in what came before. The solution to this problem is to go back and build a proper foundation in the earlier material. Set up the right convergence of characters and motives, set up the proper world knowledge, etc.
I've also done #2. When my plot gives a person a choice of two options - either the protagonist gets one thing or gets another - there can be a different kind of problem. Sometimes the reader can feel unsatisfied with either option, because they saw the choice coming a mile away and neither one answers the story problem particularly well. In that case, you can do one of two things: satisfy yourself with a sense of ambiguity, or look for a third alternative.
Naturally, any solution you choose does have to fit well with the preparation. One of the things that is most important to me is that the solution be the best one for the protagonist's particular character. An ambiguous ending requires both options to be just about equal in attractiveness from this point of view. And any third alternative has to have both a benefit and a price. If the protagonist has wanted one particular deal through the whole story, and at the end must decide to try for another outcome, there must be a big risk involved, and possibly a sacrifice. If your character gets to have it both ways too easily, then readers will feel like it was a cop-out, that all the difficult lead-in was let down at the end. And you don't want that either.
This stuff is very difficult - not only coming up with the options but deciding which one will serve the story best.
A couple of examples from my own work.
I had a big complicated solution planned for a novel which involved negotiating with multiple parties and then confronting a single heavily recalcitrant party to use the masses to sway his opinion. When I got there, it seemed foregone. So I decided to go back and set up the expectation for a bimodal (one-or-the-other) solution. The protagonists decide the only way to reach this recalcitrant person they must convince is to bring him someone he knows, through great peril, to convince him. Then readers ask, "Will the convincing person arrive or not?" They believe his arrival is the only solution, and then when he doesn't arrive, they find the planned ending much more unexpected (and hopefully persuasive - I'm still working on it).
In another story, I had the hero striving for a goal that he would either get or not. When I wrote it with him achieving the goal, all the difficulties that I'd set up for him seemed flat. Of course he was going to succeed, ho, hum. And anyway, readers weren't at all sure that the deal he got was the best one for him, because it came with a lot of strings. So that time I backed off and tried to get to the bottom of his motive. This is what my husband calls trying to find the real goal of the negotiation (in a business context): not looking at the offers that the two parties have put on the table, but looking past that to the actual desired outcome, and trying to find a way to satisfy that outcome independently of the existing offers. When I did this, I found a much more satisfying ending for the story.
Right now I'm in another quandary situation, looking at the ending of a story and trying to evaluate the building blocks, the lead-in, the characters' needs, and what kinds of options I have. It's never easy, but if I can manage to think about it clearly, I'll have a better story on my hands.
Have any of you had an experience like this? If you have, I'd love to hear.
These two things can actually work against one another, because if you've prepared throughout your manuscript for a particular ending, people will generally expect it. You then need to defeat their expectations. So if you reach the ending and experience reader protest, then there are two possible sources for a solution.
1. Change the preparation
2. Change the ending to beat the expectations
I've done #1 quite a lot: discovered that readers felt an ending I wrote was unsupported - that is to say, not given a proper foundation - in what came before. The solution to this problem is to go back and build a proper foundation in the earlier material. Set up the right convergence of characters and motives, set up the proper world knowledge, etc.
I've also done #2. When my plot gives a person a choice of two options - either the protagonist gets one thing or gets another - there can be a different kind of problem. Sometimes the reader can feel unsatisfied with either option, because they saw the choice coming a mile away and neither one answers the story problem particularly well. In that case, you can do one of two things: satisfy yourself with a sense of ambiguity, or look for a third alternative.
Naturally, any solution you choose does have to fit well with the preparation. One of the things that is most important to me is that the solution be the best one for the protagonist's particular character. An ambiguous ending requires both options to be just about equal in attractiveness from this point of view. And any third alternative has to have both a benefit and a price. If the protagonist has wanted one particular deal through the whole story, and at the end must decide to try for another outcome, there must be a big risk involved, and possibly a sacrifice. If your character gets to have it both ways too easily, then readers will feel like it was a cop-out, that all the difficult lead-in was let down at the end. And you don't want that either.
This stuff is very difficult - not only coming up with the options but deciding which one will serve the story best.
A couple of examples from my own work.
I had a big complicated solution planned for a novel which involved negotiating with multiple parties and then confronting a single heavily recalcitrant party to use the masses to sway his opinion. When I got there, it seemed foregone. So I decided to go back and set up the expectation for a bimodal (one-or-the-other) solution. The protagonists decide the only way to reach this recalcitrant person they must convince is to bring him someone he knows, through great peril, to convince him. Then readers ask, "Will the convincing person arrive or not?" They believe his arrival is the only solution, and then when he doesn't arrive, they find the planned ending much more unexpected (and hopefully persuasive - I'm still working on it).
In another story, I had the hero striving for a goal that he would either get or not. When I wrote it with him achieving the goal, all the difficulties that I'd set up for him seemed flat. Of course he was going to succeed, ho, hum. And anyway, readers weren't at all sure that the deal he got was the best one for him, because it came with a lot of strings. So that time I backed off and tried to get to the bottom of his motive. This is what my husband calls trying to find the real goal of the negotiation (in a business context): not looking at the offers that the two parties have put on the table, but looking past that to the actual desired outcome, and trying to find a way to satisfy that outcome independently of the existing offers. When I did this, I found a much more satisfying ending for the story.
Right now I'm in another quandary situation, looking at the ending of a story and trying to evaluate the building blocks, the lead-in, the characters' needs, and what kinds of options I have. It's never easy, but if I can manage to think about it clearly, I'll have a better story on my hands.
Have any of you had an experience like this? If you have, I'd love to hear.
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