***THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD***
For
the following:
Seinfeld
Casablanca
The Lord of the Rings
War of the Worlds (2005)
The Invention of Lying
One of the most difficult parts
about writing a story is figuring out how to just end the damn thing. Endings
can make or break a story. The perfect ending is like finding one last present
beneath the Christmas tree and discovering that it’s the exact thing you
wanted. However, a cheap or disappointing ending will make your audience scream
bloody murder.
Just ask these guys.
The most vital function of an ending
is to provide the characters and audience with a resolution. That doesn’t mean
you have to wrap everything up in a nice, tidy bow. In fact, more often than
not, it’s better to allow for some messiness and loose ends, because unless
you’re writing a sitcom or a Disney-fied children’s fairy tale, that
happily-ever-after shit ain’t gonna fly. At the same time, an ending has to
actually feel like, you know, an ending.
You can’t just cut the story off whenever you feel like it because you were too
lazy to find a real conclusion. Even books that are part of a larger series and
serialized TV shows have smaller arcs within the larger framework that are
fulfilled before they can progress to the next phase of the story.
So,
why is it so hard to come up with a good ending? Well, the long and short of it
is that by the time the reader reaches the end of your story, he will – or
should – care about what happens. He has invested time, money, energy and, most
importantly, his emotional wellbeing into the work and characters. It’s the
writer’s job to reward him for his dedication and trust. Readers expect a
payoff.
This
creates two potential problems. The first lies wholly with the writer. Payoff
means more than simply going from point A to point B and capping off the plot.
The ending of Casablanca was
satisfying not because we find out who Ilsa ultimately ends up with or because
she and Victor finally leave Casablanca, but because all of the characters have
grown and changed; they have each found a sense of purpose, an inner balance,
and because we care about them as people, so have we. This is why The Lord of the Rings doesn’t just end
with Gollum falling with the Ring into Mount Doom. Both Tolkien and Jackson
understood that it was never really about whether or not they destroyed the
Ring and defeated Sauron (guess what? they do!) and that the main conflict was
really within the characters themselves, in seeing how this mission would
affect them and their surroundings. We want to know what sort of impact the
story had on the characters, to see Frodo and co. grapple with the consequences
of their actions.
Now,
this doesn’t mean that you have to end every story with a rambling laundry list
of exactly what happens to all your characters, or that you have to completely
wrap up all the subplots and answer every minor question, because God knows few
things are more boring than pages of “where are they now?” summaries. But you
want to make sure you follow through on the conflicts and arcs you’ve created.
The characters – and the readers – should be in a different place from where
they started, metaphorically speaking.
The second problem with audience
investment is that not every reader will have the same idea of where the plot
and characters should go, and for the less flexible-minded among us, if that
conclusion diverts from our imagined one, it will be unsatisfying, even
enraging. Perhaps the best example of this is Lost. Possibly the most polarizing series finale since The Sopranos, the ending for Lost divided fans firmly into Love It
and Hate It camps with few people falling in between. Those who found the
conclusion cathartic or gratifying on some level followed the show for its
characters and the relationships that developed throughout its run, while those
who liked the show for its mythology and spent hours theorizing and making
predictions were more than likely underwhelmed.
In
other words, people become invested in a story for different reasons and have
different expectations. Trying to cater to every viewpoint and tailoring a
story based on the whims of its fans or based on what you think other people
want to see happen is a recipe for disaster. Chances are, you know your
characters and have a better feel for the narrative than anyone else. Write the
story you want to see. Some people may hate it, others may love it, but at
least you know you’ll be happy.
Another important thing to remember
when devising an ending is to make sure that everything leading up to it
matters. Nothing is more infuriating than reaching the end of an intense,
riveting story filled with struggles and emotional pain and having the author
erase all of that with one stroke of her pen. The worst five words to end any
story ever? And then she woke up. Also, this:
Robbie: 1
Logic and Audience: 0
However
you decide to end your story, just remember that it should, in some way, be a
consequence of everything that happened before it. It’s a cliché, but it really
is the journey that matters, not the destination. Let the hardships and changes
your characters have experienced resonate in how those issues are resolved,
whether they are obstacles that have been overcome or ones that overwhelm.
Following a similar train of
thought, your ending should feel inevitable. But, before we go anywhere, know
that inevitable does NOT mean predictable. Because endings, by their very
definition, are the outcomes of the stories surrounding them, they should feel
natural and organic, not tacked-on or out-of-left-field. The reader should walk
away with the sense that it couldn’t have ended any other way. Try as you
might, it’s impossible to imagine Ilsa choosing Rick over Victor, not just
because it’s become such an iconic ending, but because it brought the
characters to their proper conclusions and made sense in the context of the
film’s messages and themes; anything else would’ve felt dissatisfying.
However, this is not the same thing
as simply choosing an ending because it fits with an audience’s preconceived
notions about how this type of story is supposed to end. Don’t just follow the
template. A good ending works because it meets the demands of those specific
characters, not because it fulfills a pre-established plot structure. I mean,
how often have you gone into a movie or read a book that spends the first
two-thirds building a compelling narrative and complex characters, only to
dissolve into a painfully generic final act? There’s no rule that every action
movie/thriller has to end in some bombastic shoot-out, yet nine times out of
ten, that’s what you get. The guy shouldn’t get the girl just because, well,
that’s what always happens, isn’t it? If you’re merely conforming to genre
expectations, then it’s going to feel trite and manipulative.
That
said, there’s nothing wrong covering well-trod ground and following the
traditional route if you’re a skilled enough to keep it fresh and breathe new
life into an old formula. Stay true to the tone and characters you’ve
established, and keep in mind what the motivations, conflicts and desires
driving the story are.
Ultimately,
an ending can only be as good as the story supporting it. The ending is only
the top of the pyramid, and if the rest of the story doesn’t provide a strong
foundation, the whole thing will collapse. Let the conclusion be a natural
progression from everything that happened before it.
And here we are, winding down to the
conclusion of this blog post. Perhaps this was all just a bunch of rambling,
meandering nonsense, but I hope I was able to provide you with some helpful
hints and some thoughts to chew on. Either way, I wish you the best of luck
with your novel or whatever you’re working on. Remember, all things have to
come to an end someday. I hope yours is a good one.
References
Seinfeld: link
War of the Worlds: link
Invention of Lying: link
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