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I'm wondering how you feel about endings? Making a sweeping statement, which of course, does not apply to every story/film, but American ones tend to finish well, happy ever after, good triumphs over bad, that sort of ending. European films can end badly, the good guy doesn't win, there is no moral righteousness.

Those are two opposing types of ending, there are also the non-endings where a passage of time portrayed simply runs out. You might construe a kind of ending because perhaps the hero leaves, that kind of it was nice while it lasted, or it might be a look back in time.

How important is the kind of ending a story has to you?

I'm currently publishing a first story, which as it says in the intro, is a little surreal. Times, epochs, cross, the kind of multiverse scenario. Although I have not completed more than a first book, in my mind and imagination it is already a series. The different books cross over exactly like the timelines in the story. Now the first book finishes, but of course if it's a series it continues in another book, though perhaps not in a linear fashion.

Is it important to you that there is an ending which wraps everything up or simply one which makes you think, what the... did I just read? 

I guess I'll find out when I finish my own story/series, but I wonder how you think about and deal with endings. I started writing when I had the story concept, then added the characters and pursued the theme. Some way into it, I wrote the ending and I haven't changed it much when I arrived there. Do you have an ending before you arrive there? If not, it kind of seems like making a journey to an unknown destination and you could arrive anywhere or even get lost. Can you get lost if you don't have a destination? And if you don't have a destination, can you ever arrive?

Answers on a postcard to Luca E - I mean comments... :great:

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I'm English and famous for my non-endings, European style. I do a 'slice of life' usually. There's a plot and my characters develop and experience stuff.  There's always a conclusion, but it never closes things off. Readers are free to imagine the 'what next' for any particular set of characters if they wish to. Am I likely to change? Don't think so... 🤨😄

Write what suits your style of storytelling.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/13/2022 at 2:43 PM, JamesSavik said:

I like to end the story with the protagonist having a smoking hot redhead on his arm.

 

 

Hmm...I could get behind that or them :o 😛 :lol: 

Personally, with endings, I like the open-ended story ending. I want the reader to get the feeling that the story is never over, the characters will continue to live on despite me ending the story. That way readers can continue imagining a scenario where characters have to face new challenges. I don't write in one genre, I range from slice of life, fantasy, speculative fiction, and romance. 

Classic endings of HFN (Happy for now) and HEA (Happy Ever After) are fine, especially in gay fiction, which has traditionally been filled with negative endings (alienation, murder, and suicide for the gay characters prior to the 1990's), In the modern gay fiction, we encounter the opposite with more writers appealing to the female readership sensibility for Happy Endings, especially in Romance genre. To me, life isn't always bitter and dark, nor happy and hopeful, but there should always be a tomorrow for us to make as we want and endeavor to shape based on our experiences. 

Anyway that's just my take on endings

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  • 4 weeks later...

I think the ending of a story depends on the story. I have different endings to different kinds of stories. Some have a nice wrap-up with a bow and trimmings, others leave an opening for a continuation of the lives of the main characters, still others end in a sad event that gives birth to something new in a person’s life. It all depends…

If you have a series, though, I do suggest writing it all as one book broken into segments with segment endings leading into segment beginnings. I learned this from Tolkien since that’s how he wrote the Lord Of The Rings. It keeps a sense of continuity. But, yes, then when you come to the end of the serialized book, have a complete ending in mind. People invest in a series more than they do with a single story, I’ve found, so a good ending ties the series off and completes the long journey it took to get to the end.

Being American, I like to have endings, but I usually choose a bittersweet ending that leaves hope, but with the knowledge of the change the journey has had on the main character(s). Tragedy changes one and it can be in parts good and bad…a ‘bittersweet’ concept. It shows a transformation of the character(s) from something lesser to something more.

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