I've been reading your story. I haven't finished it yet, but I'm not sure you have either--the bit I've got has a note that says you've written more, but that you're far from done. You may have ended this tale since you wrote that note, I don't know.
In case you haven't, let me just say that the best advice I ever received as a young writer was this: finish your stories. If you start a story, make sure you end it.
Maybe it was the best advice because it was memorable--short, to the point. At the time, too, such a tip was jarring to hear. I had so many intriguing beginnings, so few finished works. Why? I'd lose interest, or I'd get hung up on a plot detail. Endings never seemed as beautiful as beginnings.
Endings aren't beautiful. Beginnings are lovely beyond all telling--they are endless vistas, the place you are when you are gazing out toward a misty horizon. Endings--too many times endings are when you get to what had been a misty horizon and find a concrete industrial park. Endings almost never live up to expectations.
Think about it. Think of a book you love--when you read it the first time, did you enjoy the ending? You probably did on one level--if it was a good book, it had to have a satisfying conclusion. But more immediately, you felt the pain of being cut off from the world you chanced into while absorbed in the story. The best endings can't help but be bittersweet.
So there is that prejudice against ends. There is also the fact that they are really really hard to write. A beginning, now--that's comparatively simple. It's fun to come up with beginnings:
"You're going to have to bury the body sometime, Mr. Jones," the butler said.
All the lights in the basement were on; Sarah curled in the corner as though to hide from the glare.
I've been to many parties but before tonight I'd never found myself at swordpoint at one.
There is hardly any discipline involved in beginning--you're just granting permission to your imagination to reach out to something wild. Ending is intimately connected to the work of the story, the day-in, day-out sitting in front of the blank page and putting something on it. But even more than that--it is deciding nothing more needs to be said, which runs counter to the writer's instinct. We always want to say more. That is why another piece of advice I read somewhere also applies: If you can't decide how to end something, maybe you already have.
End your stories. Even if all you can come up with is a goofy ending, something unsatisfying, something that doesn't make you as completely happy as your beginning made you, end it. That is the only way you'll get practice writing the end.
While not a new or young writer, as I mentioned last night to you, this hit home for me. It's not exactly the ending though that I am have difficulty with. I think it's more the near-ending. And I need to combine your advice with advice given by someone else at a different point in last night's meeting. "If a writing style doesn't work for you, try something else."
In my longest uncompleted work I have the entire ending written out - in my head. It's connecting where I left off to this end that I'm having difficulty with. For years I have tried to force myself to write my works from the first word to the last word. This works well with poetry and short stories, but proves more difficult with longer fiction.
There are enough role models in my group of favorite authors who write completely out of sequence that I shouldn't hesitate walking down the path. I will write the scenes I see clearly in my mind, and fill in the blanks later on.
But enough of me -- this essay is well-written, and does offer sound advice to all writers. (The fact that it caused me to think about myself as a writer, is proof that it works.) It might be fun to write something beginning with one of those beginnings you proffered, though I will leave that to someone else, as I have a lot of writing ahead of me to finish first I fear.
Posted by: John at May 29, 2002 07:38 AM