Thanks to Mr. A, who took me up on last month’s invitation and emailed me with a Storytellers Unplugged request. Mr. A’s requested topic is endings, and why so many endings, primarily in short stories written by novice writers, fall short. Why do they sometimes fail to resolve the story’s conflict? Why do protagonists become passive or unsympathetic? Why does the ending of an otherwise promising story sometimes fall flat under the weight of logic? What rough edges burst the reader’s happy bubble of belief, and why?
That’s a tall order, but I’ll do my best to fill it. The bad news is that I only have my own failures to draw on for the most part. The good new is that like most writers, all of whom were novices at some point, I have screwed up quite a lot of endings. Kelly Dunlap of Horror-Web.com fame could give you an earful. Just ask her about the fuzzy bunnies sometime.
Why do some endings fail to resolve the story’s conflict?
The easiest answer, and one I’m very familiar with, is that writers sometimes jump into a story with little more than a thin premise, two-dimensional characters, and no idea at all of what to do with them. We’re told constantly to write, write, and write some more. Write every day, even the days you don’t want to.
This is good advice, practice makes perfect and all that, but there is more to writing than just sitting down for a few hours a day and pounding the keyboard. You need to have a story worth telling, characters you care about (love or hate, it’s all good), and some idea of where you’re taking them.
One of my big weaknesses as a writer is jumping into a story and counting on the circumstances and characters to lead me through it. Sometimes it works out for me, if the players in my story are real enough to me and a clear path opens in the fog of first draft confusion. Sometimes it doesn’t work. I realize at some point that I no longer give a damn what happens to Little Johnny Paper of Suzy Brainstorm. Sometimes I plow on through to the finish line, and the end result is usually a story that couldn’t sell even if I did want others to read it, but more often I file it away in my crap folder before it’s finished and move on to something new.
Don’t get discouraged if this happens to you. You never know when something in that crap drawer will spark a better idea. Just because that story didn’t pan out doesn’t make it a waste of time. However, your stories are much more likely to avoid that end if you slow down at the beginning, pull out your compass, and choose a path rather than just running blindly through the fog hoping for the best. If you find a more interesting side-path along the way, don’t hesitate to explore it. Your story may not follow the road you’ve plotted for it, mine usually don’t, but that’s not the point. The point is that you should still prepare yourself as much as possible, lest you end up lost along the way.
If you’re going to resolve your story’s conflict, you have to know what that conflict is. Perhaps it’s a moral dilemma (your child is the Anti-Christ, do you protect it, or destroy it – see Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s baby), escaping the past (a woman who has failed to save one child from her own personal bogeyman must now try to save another - see Feral, by yours truly), or overcoming a character flaw (a man must confront his own darker half to save himself and those he loves – see Stephen King’s The Dark Half).
You, the writer, must also know where to find resolution. I’d bet money it’s waiting at the end of your path, and not lost in the trees.
Why do protagonists become passive or unsympathetic?
Know your protagonists inside and out. Psychoanalyze them, dissect them, get into their heads and make yourself comfortable. Does your protagonist have a favorite song? A favorite brand of beer (and does he/she perhaps indulge in that favorite a bit too much)? Does he/she have any unusual sexual hang-ups or kinks?
Camels or Marlboros? Outgoing or shy? Fearful or brave?
Does he or she have an interesting scar, and if so, how did they come by it?
Do you love them, or at least care for them?
Do you hate them?
When you know more about your characters that they know about themselves, and you find yourself honestly caring about them, you have solved the main problem. You have turned them into real people with real weaknesses and strengths.
Now, knowing so much about your protagonist, and your antagonist too, you’ll have an idea of how they are likely to react to the challenges you’re going to throw at them. Don’t force them to behave in ways that run contrary to their nature. For instance, your young, violent neo-Nazi antagonist isn’t going to start volunteering for Meals on Wheels, and your shy, saintly old grandmother isn’t likely to start making snuff films in her basement. There are exemptions for divine intervention and demonic possession, but don’t push it.
Without a lot of hard earned personal growth and a reserve of untapped inner strength, the wimpy, pimple-faced weenie is not going to become a hero, and conversely, without a lot of nastiness and hardship, your virginal young lady is not going to start pimping herself out for crack money.
As silly as this sounds, you’d do well to let your characters run free. Let them succeed or fail based on their own strengths and weaknesses. You may not end up with a happy ending, but you are more likely to end up with the right one.
Lastly, and this is very important, learn to recognize clichéd characters, and kill them off as quickly as possible. They make great fodder, but will do little to take your story in interesting new directions, or to satisfy your jaded readers.
Why does the ending of an otherwise promising story sometimes fall flat under the weight of logic?
I think Stephen King said it best with his exposition on the suspension of disbelief (see Danse Macabre). Anything I add will be weak in comparison, but since Uncle Steve isn’t here to help out, I’ll do what I can.
Logic and illogic has very little to do with my preferred genres, fantasy and horror. My belief in J.K. Rowling’s world of wizards and witches has zero basis in logic. F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack novels abandoned logic when The Otherness reared its ugly head, but while I’m reading them, I have no trouble believing.
Take your logic, roll it up in a ball, and stick it where the sun don’t shine. What I care about is belief, and to make a reader believe, you need a measure of reality.
Is it a coincidence that logic and reality are all too often at odds?
What Harry Potter and Repairman Jack lack in logic, they make up for by planting at least one foot firmly in our own reality. They are grounded in reality. Muggles are reality. New York City is reality. Good and evil are reality.
Hell, even Middle Earth is easy to swallow, not because it is logical, but because it is easy to imagine a time when our real world was not too different. Sauron and Gandalf the Grey are not Middle Earth, they are only representations of two very real forces, the tyrant and the wise man. Middle Earth is the peasant farmer working day by day to scrape a life from his patch of soil, or the king fighting to preserve his kingdom. The Peasant and The King are reality, even today. We relate to them. Standing alongside The Peasant and The King, Sauron and Gandalf are a little easier to swallow.
For another example, take Brian Keene’s The Rising. Reality is the heartbroken father, desperate for the company and love of his child. The zombies are a complication, or window dressing, as a better writer than I once told me. Why is the father not with his child already? If he loves his child, he should be with his child. Sounds logical, doesn’t it? Divorce, resentment, jealously, and hatred are an illogical reality that break many families and hearts.
Again, just in case I haven’t stressed it enough, forget logic. Put your roots down in reality, give me belief, and your story will transcend the need for logic.
My little rant on belief over logic covers more than endings, of course, but without belief, no one will get to the end of your story. If you populate a believable world with real characters, then set them free to do as they will (within the bounds of the story, of course) they will dictate the ending to you.
Problem solved.
So, there it is. My best advice on the subject of endings. It works for me anyway. Make what you will of it. Take what you can from it and file the rest away in your crap drawer for later consideration. It might just come in handy some day.
Brian Knight
7 Comments, Comment or Ping
Denni
The Zombies are just window dressing…
That will be the line I’ll remember , at least after first reading this great essay (there’s so much advise here that I’ll come back to it).
I’m so focussed on the ‘complications’ and ‘window dressing’ that I can’t see the reality of my stories.
Thanks for helping to clear that up
May 23rd, 2007
Janet Berliner
Good topic.
I once told Michael Crichton that most of his endings sucked. He laughingly agreed with me. Well over a decade later, I’m still asking myself why, if he knew, he didn’t see fit to fix them. My guess is that his massive popularity has something to do with the answer.
Or is it that what works for some doesn’t always
work for others?
–Janet
May 23rd, 2007
Brian
Denni, thanks for the kind words. Hope the esssay helps!
Janet, you know Michael Crichton?
May 24th, 2007
Elizabeth Massie
This was much good food for creative thought…endings, be they in short fiction, novels, television series, movies, or plays, can bring me to my feet or leave me shaking my head and pondering what *I* might have done given the same set of characters and circumstances. Maybe we need to realize that readers may possibly invest even more in our characters than we do, and so we do need to know them and then let them run wild.
Beth
May 24th, 2007
Janet Berliner
Yes, Brian, I do, indeed. It’s a loooong story. –J.
May 24th, 2007
Brian
Beth, thanks for the kudos. BTW, a friend sent me one of your three eyes cat clocks, and my daughters LOVE it!
Janet, I hope you share teh story sometime
Brian
Jun 5th, 2007
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