Fic thoughts

[shapinglight]

Probably not a good time to post this, but I've been mulling it over all day - endings are tricky, aren't they?



This isn't apropos of anything I've read recently, btw, unless it's something to do with the ridiculous amount of angst I inflicted on you all when I was unable to get the ending of my noel_of_spike story to my satisfaction. But endings are tricky, aren't they?

Back when I read a lot of sci-fi (very long ago now), one of my favourite authors was CJ Cherryh. Don't know if any of you are familiar with her? Anyway, despite the fact I did at that time love her books to distraction, I don't think I ever read one with a wholly satisfactory ending. And she's a published author, with 40 books or more under her belt. What chance do we poor, benighted fanfic writers have?

So tell me, have you ever read anything where the end was 100% (or let's say 99%) satisfying, and if so, what was it?

Once I've thought of something myself, I'll come back and ETA this post.

Comments

[whichclothes.livejournal.com]

You know, I really can't think of anything. I think it's partly because of I have mixed motives about endings--I want them to remain true to the spirit of the story and to reality, and not be all they-lived-happily-ever-afterish. On the other hand, I'm a total sucker for happy endings. So there you go--can't please me at all.

Also, I think one mark of a well-written piece is that the reader doesn't want it to end. So that no matter how neatly the author ties things up, it's not enough because I don't want to leave that world yet.

And personally, I almost always find the end the hardest part to write. I agonize endlessly over titles, too, but I think a bad ending can ruin an otherwise good story, so I really worry about those last few sentences.

[shapinglight]

On the other hand, I'm a total sucker for happy endings.

I'm actually not that fussed about happy endings. In fact, I sort of prefer ambiguous ones, but it all depends on the context.

And I do know what you mean about no ending really being satisfying if you've enjoyed something enough because you just want it to go on. Maybe CJ Cherryh's endings are cleverly contrived to leave you wanting?

And I agree, the ending is always the hardest part to write. So much so that at times it seems next to impossible, for which see all that annoying whingeing I did.

[elisi]

So tell me, have you ever read anything where the end was 100% (or let's say 99%) satisfying, and if so, what was it?
Kim. (by Kipling. He's *excellent* at endings.) There're probably others, but that's the one that springs to mind.

Ficwise... Hm, tricky. See mostly I tend to read 'stuff-that-fits-into-canon' stories, so endings are sort of a moot point.

[shapinglight]

I'm still struggling to think of anything -which possibly I should just put down to having a bloody awful memory. I think maybe the Victorians were better at endings than we are now, because some things were more clearcut back then.

Or possibly I'm just waffling?

[hello-spikey.livejournal.com]

A lot of my writer friends complain about endings, and I am very hard to please, myself. I hate most all the endings I've written, with a few tiny exceptions.

I recently read "The Jane Austen Book Club" and found the ending very satisfying.

Connie Willis' "To Say Nothing of the Dog" was a wonderful ending. Big, happy sighs. Also Muriel Spark's "Loitering With Intent"

And as I look back on these "favorite endings" I find that these are all very strongly plotted stories, you know? The stories end where they do because the big old convoluted plot has been resolved.

That said, I always adored CJ Cherryh, sloppy endings or no.

[hello-spikey.livejournal.com]

I forgot to give Karen Joy Fowler credit for her book. My bad.

Also, if you can stomach completely flat characters in outdated social structures, Asimov always seals up his endings nice and tight. Quite fond of the way he ends "End of Eternity" for example.

[shapinglight]

I hate most all the endings I've written, with a few tiny exceptions.

Are any of the endings you like endings of your fanfic stories, or are they all of your OF? I like the end of Crazy Madcap Redemption.

And as I look back on these "favorite endings" I find that these are all very strongly plotted stories, you know? The stories end where they do because the big old convoluted plot has been resolved.

Could be that's why Dickens's endings are quite good, at least imo they are. Lots of plot in a Dickens novel, in fact possibly too much sometimes.

Have you read Fingersmith? I thought the end of that was rather good.

That said, I always adored CJ Cherryh, sloppy endings or no.

Always nice to meet another Cherryh fan. Which is your favourite (assuming you have one)? I'm very fond of The Paladin, whereas I'm not so keen on the Foreigner series, which just seems to go on and on. I don't like the hero.

[brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I think the endings which satisfy me least tend to be those 'proper' endings neatly tied up with a bow. I want a sense of continuity post-story, even if it's a one-off. (Errm, unless everyone's dead, but Apocalypse fic is very rarely exactly right.)

I'm guilty of short quippy endings a lot of the time. It makes for a definite end, but it's not usually very satisfying to me.

[shapinglight]

I think the endings which satisfy me least tend to be those 'proper' endings neatly tied up with a bow.

Mostly, I would agree. I like a note of ambiguity. But it all depends on the context. Victorian novels often tie things up in a nice, neat bow, but it seems to work in those.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

I am cheap and easy, and like stories that end with a rim shot (joke). This is most effective in movies, one of the greatest endings in history being "Nobody's perfect," from Some Like It Hot. They also tend to give the impression that the story will continue "off-screen", which is nice. I often resort to the cheap and easy when ending my fics. It's a failing. For long, epic, serious tales (which I am, alas, unlikely to ever write) I'm not sure it's the best approach, but it just might beat a meandering non-ending. *shrug* I worry about my ending and titles being derivative, but by the time I get there I am so thoroughly sick of the thing that I just want it to be over. Sometimes. Sometimes, I have the ending figured out from the first, though not often.

Anyway, your most recent ending didn't rankle a bit. *pets you soothingly*

[shapinglight]

This is most effective in movies, one of the greatest endings in history being "Nobody's perfect," from Some Like It Hot.

Oh dear me, yes! I love that movie and the end is just wonderful. It is nice to imagine what happened next (though with that movie, I'm not sure I can).

I'm not sure there is such a thing as a cheap and easy ending. I'm pretty sure that if a writer can contive something which doesn't leave people thinking either, "Is that all?" or "That was totally lame," you're doing well.

[deird1]

I'm so bad at endings. I hardly ever manage to write one I really like.

[shapinglight]

Same here, if it helps. I think I managed it once, but even so, it was a very fanficc-y ending.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

I'm having trouble thinking of original fiction examples, but you have me pondering about my own writing. (god, self-involved)

I seem to be "good" at cliffhanger endings in chapters which work well to propel the story forward into the next chapter. But as this is for my only truly long WIP, I don't have a true ending to offer.

In oneshots, I always seem to be building up to the ending so I think they often work out well. (Probably the only example I can offer that's short and sweet is Sharp Edges (http://angearia.livejournal.com/59629.html).)

But the ending for my long work freaks me out. Anxiety that it's not going to live up to all that's come before. And the ending is so important - it's what note the reader takes away from the story.

I think this would be a great question for the writer community discussions - "What makes a satisfying end to a story?"

[shapinglight]

But the ending for my long work freaks me out. Anxiety that it's not going to live up to all that's come before. And the ending is so important - it's what note the reader takes away from the story.

I agree it's tricky. There's a fic of mine that took me two years to write. Some people were kind enough to read it from the beginning to the bitter end and I was very aware of the burden of trying to give them an end that would be both emotionally satisfying and yet true to the story.

I think this would be a great question for the writer community discussions - "What makes a satisfying end to a story?"

It would, though I suspect most people would come up with the same answer, ie. that the ending should be true to the story. Of course, consensus on what is true to a story would vary wildly from person to person. Some people think NFA is a cliffhanger.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oh, jeez. I don't know. It's easier to remember the ones without satisfying endings. I mean, I like Neil Gaiman books, but I think nearly all of his books have lackluster endings. (Then again, I just finished Good Omens, which is a Gaiman/Pratchett collaboration and rather liked the ending of that one... which was more or less "If you must imagine what came after this, just imagine an endless summer of sunny days and a boy playing with his dog..." or something to that effect. )

One ending that I was satisfied with (but a glance at Amazon.com made clear to me that many people weren't) was the ending to Stephen King's The Cell. The premise to that one was that some sort of universal cell phone signal had created a zombie apocalypse (not literal zombies but as good as) and the protagonist's son had been zombiefied. Through the course of the novel a character had reached the conclusion that the cell signal was "rebooting" and that perhaps, if a zombie listened to newer rebooted signal, the zombie would reboot and become normal --if infantile -- again. By the end of the novel the protagonist was so despairing and so exhausted and so desperate to have his son back that he pressed the phone to his zombie-son's ear and answered the phone... The End. We never knew for certain whether it did cure the son or whether it didn't. I gathered from Amazon that it was incredibly frustrating for some readers, but I rather liked it. Had King ended it with a happy reboot (doubtful) then those same people would be crying 'cliche!'. Had he ended it on the despairing note that the protagonist had absolutely nothing left to live for and was doomed to a zombie-child that he'd either have to kill or care for until some lapse in attention allowed the child the opportunity to kill him, then those readers would protest what a depressing, pointless book. Leaving it as a question, however, made it haunting.

It was sort of an NFA-type ending. And, like NFA, I kind of liked it. (But it's not to everyone's taste).

[shapinglight]

It's certainly true that people's attitude to endings does vary. I've never read any Stephen King (not a horror story fan), but that ending sounds perfect to the spirit of the story as you describe it.

I'd certainly say NFA was a perfect ending, which is all the more astonishing when you consider that AtS was cancelled quite late in the day and as such the end was constructed out of 10p and a piece of string, as it were. However, some people think it's a cliffhanger and feel cheated because that army of Slayers, with Buffy at its head, didn't come sweeping in to save everyone.

[quinara]

Hamlet. Nuff said. (Though as a play that's probably cheating.) The endings of the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid all kick arse in different ways (lots of people diss the Odyssey's ending, but I love it). John le Carré's The Constant Gardener ends wonderfully IIRC, again with inevitable tragedy.

I'm rubbish at endings, though I wouldn't be surprised if that was because my favourite type of endings are tragic endings (as in sort of following the rules of tragedy rather than just sad), which don't mesh well with wanting Spike and Buffy to be relatively happy with each other. So I'm all about the anticlimax.

[shapinglight]

So I'm all about the anticlimax.

No, not at all, though I can see how liking a particular form of ending that is at odds with how you would like the characters to end up is a big problem for a writer. If it came down to it, which would you sacrifice?

Also, I have still failed to pin down an ending that wholly satisfied me. I'm, sure there must be loads, it's just that my memory is so crap these days that I've forgotten them. :(

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

I agree - endings are the hardest. I never start writing a fic until I know the ending, plot-wise, ot, at least, the last line. In fanfiction, my favorite type of ending is the one that re-magines something within the canon.

In sci-fi, my absolute favorite is Clifford Simak's "Desertion". Explorers on the planet Jupiter are first transformed into beings that can survive the harsh atmosphere, then sent out to gather data. None have come back. The main characters goes outside together with his dog and realizes that Jupiter is actially a true paradise. He and his dog agree that they shouldn't return.

... "They would change me back into a dog."
"And me back into a man."

When I read it for the first time, it was an illumination to me.

[snickfic]

Clifford Simak! I dearly love Simak, especially from my early days reading SF, and his collection City (which includes "Desertion") is one of my absolute favorites.

I wonder if maybe short stories in general don't tend to have stronger endings than novels, just because the ending is so much larger a percentage of the story. Also, I think it's a lot easier to control and fine-tune the elements of a short story. I can think of a number of SF short stories with truly outstanding endings: "Light of Other Days" by Bob Shaw, "Comes Now the Power" by Roger Zelazny (as well as a number of other stories - Zelazny was a true master of the short form), "The Gunner's Mate" by Gene Wolfe (which isn't a story I'd expect anyone to have read, but I am very fond of it), "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. All with endings right up to the last line that fit just perfectly.

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

I loathe cliffhangers or the ambiguous and I'm a sucker for happy endings that finish with a rhetorical flourish. I still reckon I ended Chevachee quite well.

As you say, the 19th century did these things better. Wrapping up a complex plot without an info dump of exposition is near impossible so a detached formal style that can cope with large amounts of exposition often works better. Consider the whole 'Reader, I married him.' chapter of Jane Eyre which is basically one long chunk of exposition yet stands as a justly famous 'satisfying' ending.

The trick I use these days is to spread the plot completion out over several chapters (or paragraphs in a short story) and then have a final section that isn't actually necessary for the plot but rounds things off emotionally for a flourish.

[shapinglight]

I loathe cliffhangers or the ambiguous and I'm a sucker for happy endings that finish with a rhetorical flourish.

Whereas I love the ambiguous and tend to think of happy endings as a bit of a cop out, possibly verging on trite(depending on the context, of course). Hmm, you said recently that you thought I'd only just got good at endings. Does this mean I've been writing more happy endings, or more endings with all boxes ticked?

I do think the Victorian literary style lends itself more to tidy endings.

[snickfic]

Ooh! I can think of a novel I read recently that I liked very much: On Stranger Tides, by Tim Powers. It's basically historical pirate fantasy, and, as Hello_spikey said about endings, what I loved about it was how tightly the plot was written to lead to the ending. There was no plot element wasted.

So, yeah, I suspect I often am most impressed by endings in strongly plotted novels, rather that loose and sprawling novels. Maybe once you let the novel loose, it's tough to rein back in? Certainly I can think of a number of sprawling novelists, like Neal Stephenson, that have real difficulty with anything resembling closure - plotwise or emotional.

All of which is pretty ironic, considering how much trouble I have with plot. Heh. A plotty author, I am not.

[shapinglight]

It's basically historical pirate fantasy, and, as Hello_spikey said about endings, what I loved about it was how tightly the plot was written to lead to the ending. There was no plot element wasted.

I think I've read a Tim Powers novel, unless I have the wrong author. The one I read was about the Romantic poets, Keats and Shelley. Of course, I don't remember the end. In fact, if this post has done anything, it's shown me what a terrible memory I have. :( I don't seem to be able to remember any ending of a book/fic that's fully satisfied me, and yet there must have been loads.

If it helps, I really liked the way you ended Seraph. It was a proper end, but left the readers wanting more, and that's probably the best sort there is.

[kitty-poker1.livejournal.com]

Short answer: If a fic has a satisfying ending, it stays on my e-reader to be re-read. That assumes an equally satisfying beginning and middle.

If it doesn't, it goes into a limbo from which it can be retrieved if the middling bits and ending are worth re-visiting.

[shapinglight]

Ah. Do any stick in the mind? I'm just interested to know what strikes you, personally, as a satisfying ending.

[jamalov29.livejournal.com]

I guess endings are tricky , I have not much experience as writer but I think I would try to find a balance between hopeful and real.
When reading I think a good ending would be something true to the characters , to what they’ve been going through, although with this an author can go different directions .
I do love happy endings , especially in romances but otherwise I will be satisfied with a lots of situations as long as I believe it’s somehow emotionally fair to the characters. And while I claim being a sucker for happy ends my favourite stories are tragic ones.

I also believe it takes some courage to write a sad , tears-inspiring ending even if it's the right one. The writer has the power and what they decide to do with the characters is up to them ,so the desire to lead them to a good place exists but it's not necessarily the most fulfilling. If it makes sense?

have you ever read anything where the end was 100% (or let's say 99%) satisfying, and if so, what was it?

Yes , and several works come to mind. "Wuthering Heights" for one , with Heathcliff ‘ s death and finding Cathy at last , together wandering the moors.
"High Society", from Vita Sackville-West ( I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending but there’s death ) , or a French novel, "Et si c’était vrai", from Marc Levy .

[shapinglight]

The writer has the power and what they decide to do with the characters is up to them ,so the desire to lead them to a good place exists but it's not necessarily the most fulfilling. If it makes sense?

Oh yes, it makes perfect sense. I think, for me, the story making emotional sense is the most important thing. More important that every single detail of the plot being neatly resolved.

Though of course it does depend in the context and genre. A detective novel, for instance, more or less requires every detail of the plot to be resolved and the emotional sense of the piece may not matter at all.

In the end, context is everything, I suppose.

[next_to_normal]

Hmm, I'm sure I've read fics with satisfying endings. But I'm pretty much useless at remembering what I've read at all, let alone something specific like that. The book I just finished had a satisfying ending - "The Thirteenth Tale," by Diane Setterfield. It's something of a mystery, so it's satisfying in that all the pieces come together and it all makes sense, and while it's hard to call it a happy ending (I cried quite a bit), you do get the sense that the characters' arcs are resolved - that they're finally at peace, you might say (which is appropriate, as some of them are dead).

[shapinglight]

But I'm pretty much useless at remembering what I've read at all, let alone something specific like that.

I'm glad to meet someone in the same boat. I was beginning to think I was the only one. I'm still wracking my brains trying to think of a story the end of which completely satisfied me. Perhaps The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov, though the fact that I don't know any Russian and can only read it in translation makes me dubious about mentioning it.