Questions to the writers and readers

[lobelia321]

I am very stumped over the ending of my fic.

Jane Smiley advises somewhere that to fix the ending, you need to go back to the beginning.

When you are stumped over an ending to your story, what do you do?

What ending of yours are you most satisfied with, and why did it work so well?

And as readers, what endings have you most liked and why were these so memorable?


ETA: And by ending, I mean the very last paragraphs, but also the very last sentence.

Comments

[rahaeli.livejournal.com]

When I get stuck on the ending, I always go back to the very beginning of the story and start reading, with a notebook/notepad/separate document handy. I read through it like it's someone else's story: what clues am I giving? What feels important? What feels like I'll be cheating if I don't deal with it in the ending? What kind of themes and motifs do I keep coming back to?

It's amazing (I find) how often the ending of the story is laid out in the first half of the story, waiting for me to find it; I just have to be willing to look at what I've got so far and say, okay, what's the only way that this can end and still be true to what I've already established.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you. This is really hands-on and rings true. I have already read this story about 20 times but each reading yields different insights, so a 21st reading, reading just for the ending, may be just the thing.

And I suppose I haven't yet read the story with readers in mind, funnily. I've read it with Sheppard in mind, with the wraith in mind, with the story arc and the story motifs and my sense of what is right in mind. But not with the 'wtf I'm a reader' in mind! :-)

[rollina.livejournal.com]

In a very few words, as a writer and mostly as a reader: I love unespected endings. ;)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Sorry, I'm not saying much but that's just because I'm taking it in and thinking about it. :-)

[msilverstar]

I've been stressing over one WIP for ages, on in which I had a unlikely but happy ending planned. But then I realized it was not the right ending, that it really ought to end on a minor key, and feel better about it now. Still not done, but the six sections that refused to be written are no longer hanging over me.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Writing can be so hard!! Sometimes it's so easy, like the wind, and sometimes it's so dang HARD.

:-)

[azewewish.livejournal.com]

Your ending should always correlate to the beginning. Which is usually where I go when I'm stuck on how to end something - back to the beginning to see what sort of parallel I need to draw & what sort of journey I'm trying to gauge in my characters.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

And do you then sometimes change the beginning to get what is needed?

[azewewish.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, yes.

[grondfic.livejournal.com]

I'm striving for an ending myself at the moment; so I sympathise. What I want is closure for one of the characters (the other one had no choice - Canon demanded Death); and for myself as writer. Does this help at all?

Otehrwise I sometimes do a punchline for the final sentence; but that's mainly for lighter or humorous stuff.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh! I have a Death issue! But I don't want closure, the opposite perhaps. The fic needs closure. The character doesn't. That is actually a helpful insight; thanks for leading me to it, Grondie.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

*surfs in from metafandom*
When you are stumped over an ending to your story, what do you do?

I know what I SHOULD do but what I ACTUALLY do is toss the damn story aside and stubbornly ignore it for a few weeks. Sometimes I call it names and belittle its potency first. I write other stories and I let the stalled story know how GOOD it is with the other stories and why can't it be like that with us?

But I don't recommend that path. It leads to high blood pressure and heartache. Once you've worked off some of your frustration, either with a different story or self-abuse (do whatever works for you =D), come back to the story with the resolve to rip the whole damn thing apart if you have to in order to get a satisfactory ending.

But I'm also a bit tyrannical about my writing and I don't take any crap from a bunch of words. Sure, the words outnumber you but you hold the power of deletion. (And srsly, I talk tough but I currently have a hard drive full of stories that are mocking my hypocrisy. I'm afraid to turn the laptop on in case they're lying in wait behind the recycle bin. ;__;)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I've been metaed, have I? Nice to see you here in my LJ. :-)

And thank you for the amusing comment. Alas, why don't these stories ever behave as they're supposed to? Ripping the whole damn thing apart scares me. But maybe if I rip little bits here and there...

don't take any crap from a bunch of words Mauwhhahhh. Oh dear.

Here from metafandom

[melfinatheblue.livejournal.com]

Generally, if I am completely stuck on an ending, I wander off and write something else. Then I come back to it and try again. Which is rather unhelpful, now that I come to think about it. Endings are hard, I'm never quite sure when to stop talking.

I do run through my stories in my head, trying different things and seeing what works (and what my characters are likely to do).

The ending line i am most proud of: "Anything you want, Severus, anything you want." I can point to my fav ending fic if you'd like, it's not that one, oddly enough.

Re: Here from metafandom

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you for coming over here from metafandom, and welcome to my humble journal. :-)

I've done the wandering off and writing something else. Gads, I've done it for 2 1/2 years and I've written about 25 fics in the interim! *stomps*

I have fic endings that I am immensely proud of but this one, so far, ain't one of them. But thanks for the point about what the character is likely to do. That is very, very helpful.

[dmarley.livejournal.com]

This may sound a bit crazy, but on the occasions when I've had problems with an ending what I've ended up doing is whacking off stuff *from* the end until I get another ending. It's really amazing how many really good final sentences I write that happen two pages before the actual end of the story. :) I get caught up in the idea that I have to add stuff to clarify what happens and tie things up and leave the reader satisfied, when in fact it may be that I've sabotaged myself by going on to explain exactly what I know happens at the end.

Mind you, explaining isn't necessarily a bad thing, but for me it can lead into the trap of going on and on with things that I know happen and are important, but aren't ultimately *necessary* to the story. I know as a reader that I can be perfectly satisfied with a story ending that shows only the shape, as it were, of the ending, where everything isn't necessarily tied up in a neat bow but where the reader is still left with a pretty good idea of how things are going to play out.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

That is really interesting, actually. I will try this, at least as an experiment: shaving stuff off. Oh dear, I can see myself shaving and shaving until I reach the very first sentence...

I like the idea of the shape of the ending. Thank you.

[laura-holt-pi.livejournal.com]

If I try to think of an ending, I always fail, so I just wait until it comes to me. I used to over-think my writing and never finished stories. Now I don't think at all, I just write, and endings come easily.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, how I envy you! But this ploy just won't work with this particular story. Meh.

[dalaire.livejournal.com]

Here from metafandom

I usually have a worked-over outline written before I start a story, so the ending is set from the start. One time, however, I finally came to the end of the story and found that what I'd planned no longer worked. After grumbling about it for a day or so, I drafted the planned ending and came up with a few alternatives. I gave those a couple of days to fester then looked the last section over again. In the end, I finally saw where the problem was, revised the last chapter and merged the original ending with some of the new ideas.

That's the long way of saying I looked into some alternatives, gave it some time and rewrote where needed. ;^)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thanks for joining me in my journal from metafandom, and welcome! :-)

This might be one thing to do, you know. Just writing up a few alternatives. Even if just to rid myself of the written-in-stone fallacy vis-a-vis the ending I've already got. Ta!

[modillian.livejournal.com]

I haven't really thought about this before. Hunh. But with some thinking back, I realize all that stuff you put down and other writers have said is true to me: I usually have the ending in mind when I first start writing, or it forms itself in a loop back while I'm writing the early parts of the story. Taking breaks and re-seeing the work, finding what main objectives I mean to get through and end it on helps too.

The best ending I can think of is this one (http://www.ravenswing.com/~mirrorgirl/warmplace.html), as it carries on the tone and feel of the work as well as opening it up even more to a vague future with luminous, heartachy images.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I can't judge the ending you link me to because that is, alas, one of the criteria for successful endings: one has got to have read everything that comes before... But what is interesting is that you liked a rather lyrical, descriptive ending whereas I tend to think an ending needs to be a punchy line. Thank you.

[erinptah]

I've only had one case of a fic where the ending really refused to come together.

...and I'm afraid I copped out. It was three months after posting the thing that I realized how it should have ended, but part of the ending it deserves involves being more existential than I'm up to right now. I'll revise it one of these days. Just not now.

So, not much help here ^_^; (Should've tried some of these strategies at the time....)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh no, you copped out! Well, I could do that and most readers wouldn't probably even notice. But I would! And this fic has been so long in the making, I'll be cheating myself if I don't try hard some more. Bah.

:-)

[blackjackrocket.livejournal.com]

I act it out with a variety of situations and see what works the best.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That is actually really rather good advice. Funny, how the obvious things sometimes don't occur to one...

[blackjackrocket.livejournal.com]

I find it also helps with staging and getting inside their minds as a bonus.
And any time!

[thinkingheart.livejournal.com]

(Here via metafandom)

Tedious experimentation has taught me that writing plot outlines and synopses is a great way to end up with - plot outlines and synopses. I usually have a hazy idea of what the ending is likely to be, and sometimes I find the ending comes into sharper and sharper focus as I write but quite often I'm surprised by the plot twists (which means I have to go back and fix up earlier stuff). Basically I just write and write and write, and when I stop, if I'm happy with the result it's an ending and I now have the first draft. If I'm not happy, then the project has "hung".

I find that every time a project "hangs" it's because I've gone off the beam. My subconscious knows that character X would/n't really do [whatever] or that I've cheated on the setting or plot mechanics. If re-reading in "nit-picking anorak from hell" mode doesn't work then I look at what I think of as the "emotional geography": how the characters interact; what they're doing and *why*. Nine times out of ten I find it's because I've wimped out: either protecting some character that I like, or ducked writing a scene I wasn't confident I could pull off.

At which point I often go off and write squeeful pwp bunnyfucking fluff and come back later when I'm up to killing his dog or really getting down and dirty in the Your Mother Is A Psychotic Fucking Bitch argument scene. I find that once I've forced myself to do whatever it was, then the rest of the story sorts itself out.

HTH

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you for coming over from metafandom, and welcome in my humble journal! :-)

writing plot outlines and synopses is a great way to end up with - plot outlines and synopses
Fabulous. I love it. And why, although having had this experience, haven't I had this insight?

The thing here is that I've written and rewritten the fic, and still I am left with this ending that doesn't quite push the button for me. So I'm truly 'hung' (a nice euphemism, *coughs*). i do like the term emotional geography a lot; it makes sense. And the wimping out... oh yes! That is the fear, I think: the fear comes from suspecting that there's something majorly non-wimpish to be done here, and I don't want to face it. *buries head*

What is HTH?

[thinkingheart.livejournal.com]

Hi Lobelia

"HTH" is old net-speak for "Hope that helped/helps"; I sometimes use it as a lazy kind of sign off akin to "cheers" or "best wishes". (Easy to type, you see!)

Well, for the wimping out, I guess there is no substitute for just gritting teeth and doing it. I find it helps to tell myself (out loud if necessary) that "it's only a draft" - nobody will ever see it unless I decide to release it, and writing it is not a commitment to release. It also helps to be feeling confident and "in the groove" before I tackle something I'm not sure of, so I go and write some stuff that's well inside my comfort zone to give myself a boost.

That's a different issue to writing a harrowing argument scene though. I find I've often ducked those just because they're so exhausting to write. Those do tend to sit around on my HD waiting for me to gather the necessary oomph, and I've learned not to worry about it.

But you say you've a different problem with your ending; that it's almost, but not quite there. It sounds like you've tidied up the necessary story-threads, but perhaps the structure is a bit off?

One of the things I've found helpful to make an ending feel right is to refer to the beginning. So I might end the story in the same location where it began (either exactly - Mrs. Jones' Tea Shoppe - or generally, in a different cafe or a restaurant). Or perhaps the same time of day if the light or time is significant to the story. Perhaps you could echo dialogue from the beginning of the story (this can be especially good if the words are the same but the meaning is now different).

Generally when you're fiddling with structure you need to be thinking about your story at the thematic level. I think of story structure and character development as "the journey".

When I'm thinking about the story I ask things like: whose journey is it? Where are they starting from? etc. So I've usually got a thematic overview of the story floating around somewhere in my head. (Billy is travelling from fear to acceptance: he learns that while Jake seems aggressive and dangerous, he's also honest and trustworthy.)

Now because I will have spent a lot of time thinking about Billy before I write the story, I'll know what that fear means to him, how he behaves, how he encodes that fear into what he's doing.

Let's imagine that at the start of the story his Mom and her new boyfriend are having a terrible argument. Billy can't bear the horrible things they're shouting - he has to get away. He's obviously emotionally vulnerable, so I'd echo that by having him physically vulnerable - just out of the shower, perhaps, with only a thin little towel between himself and all that nastiness.

So before he leaves, we'll see him getting dressed, symbolically putting on layers of armour between himself and the dangerous world. Now an ending can use that symbolism: if we've focussed obsessively on Billy buttoning up his shirt, cinching his belt tight, lacing his boots so tightly that he snaps a lace, then just reversing that action can make the ending feel right.



Billy pushed open the windows and stood a moment, feeling the evening breeze cool against his skin as he struggled with his collar button. It resisted his fingers for a moment, then gave suddenly, the starched cloth bending under the pressure.

Jake grinned, sprawled comfortably across the coverlet, the dark lines of his tattoos merging with the shadows in the gathering dusk. "Want a hand with that?"

Billy shook his head. "Conserve your strength," he said. "You're gonna need it."




Ahem. **Blinks to try and dispel visions of horny biker-slash.** Oh well.

You'll notice that the other thing I've done with the ending is pick up the contrast between the ending and the initial set-up: in running away Billy is shown as weak, and the ending implies that he's now the strong one.

I hope one of those suggestions has lit a powder-trail of inspiration for you.


;o)

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking more about endings, and what makes a good one, and what doesn't.

definitely agree it needs to echo the beginning, possibly an imperfect echo.

sometimes it's a case of hacking away until you get the perfect closing line (closing para?)

stories with a twist are old hat but stories that end with something that makes you see the whole story in a slightly different light are fab.

sometimes it helps to think of the opening few paras and the closing few paras as a frame for the actual story: an intro, a context, a conclusion. (Someone said on a panel recently that good fiction works the same way as good non-fiction: thesis, evidence, analysis. I think she was talking at para level but I am thinking about it at story level.)

With this particular fic you might need to find a line / sentence / para that's more about loss. Or alienation.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of imperfect echo very much. I don't like the idea of hacking away but I can see that I have to bite that bullet... *gets machete*

Stories in a different light -- oh, but that is hard! I am very intrigued by your ideas about intro/context/concl or thesis/evidence/analysis. I am reminded by your comment also of what A.L. Kennedy said at the writer's workshop I did a year ago. It went more or less like this:

There are two aspects to a novel:
1) plot, story
2) the Big Thing, the 'x': e.g. death, loss of innocence
If you get the 'x' right, then you get the end.
The 'x' is often connected with your principal character.
And from 'x' you get your metaphors and similes, and the 's', the story.

Thank you for reminding me of this!

[miso-no-tsuki.livejournal.com]

I've only written fluff/funny/porn so I'm hardly one to talk, but I try to hear the characters *speaking* the lines, in their voices, so I can tell if it's them or me talking.
Endings vary so much. In a literal version of the beginning and end echoing each other there is a gorgeous, angsty story about Rodney and Radek trying to outwit the Wraith who have taken Atlantis by altering the timeline. The first sentence and the last are *exactly* the same and it's only then that you realise they're locked in a time loop.(Can't remember title or author, sadly; only the frisson of sadness when I *got* it.)
I vote for the whole *conclusion* thing, as I hate stories that *don't* finish properly, even where they are open-ended.
Of my own stuff; my favourite line is from the end of the "Thresholds" series.
"Besides, he'd get that Nobel anyway." Guess.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Yes! How amazing that you should say this, about the speaking, because just tonight I was in the kitchen, speaking John to myself and being John on the island and figuring out what he would say and feel and think.

That Rodney/Radek sounds heartbreaking. I'll ask about it on sga_storyfinders!

I, too, love a punchy last line. But then someone else further up in this thread quoted a lyrical descriptive final paragraph at me so punchy is not the only option.

I have got neither, at the moment. But I'm starting to think that I have got neither because I haven't actually got an ending yet.

Thank you for your thought-provoking comment!

[mhari.livejournal.com]

Reading it over helps. Having someone else read it over helps. So does just keeping writing until you say "Eh, that'll work." Or until you get to the next line you're really proud of, because ending on a high point is always good.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you! So helpful. I've already given this to four betas so I've already done the 'having someone else read it' bit! And in my mind I've turned it over and over and I think am slowly groping my way to some kind of resolution.