Endings Come to Us

Endings come to us,

sometimes freely chosen

sometimes imposed by

the laws of nature,

a road stopped by

the stones of a cliff

or the edge of a lake.

You might run out of

ink or forget your pen

or come to the last

page of your notebook

and decide it’s time

for ending what you started

months ago.

Or you might wake up

with the line “Today’s

the day I end the

project,” and know

you’ll write to the 

end of the hour and

put down your pen

and it will be over.

You might laugh at the

notion of ending, asking

why should anything that

you enjoy so much

have to end, and

keep writing each

morning, writing as long

as your pen inspires

words to come through

you to the page.

Maybe the decision

isn’t in your hands.

Maybe you continue

until the well dries up

or the ink is used

or the paper gone.

Maybe it never ends,

even after the ending

comes, the words still

spinning in your head,

the joy of writing

never ending.

-->

Where the River Ends

The other day Kathleen Bolton at Writer Unboxed, one of my favorite blogs on writing, described the difficulty of drafting the final chapter in her current work-in-progress.

She had reached the end... but wasn't sure exactly how the story should come to its conclusion:

I mean, I have a vague idea of how it should end (hopefully leaving the reader slavering for more), but I’m waffling between an upbeat ending or something more artistic (e.g. sad)...

Bolton asked readers what they wanted from an ending, and here's how I responded:

What I want from an ending is to feel as if the tumblers of a combination lock have fallen magically into place, opening a door into my heart.

Or maybe what I want to feel is a door clicking softly shut, but not before revealing one last glimpse into the character’s heart… as his or her struggle, which began on page one, comes to a conclusion that feels both surprising yet inevitable.

Inevitable because the ending will have grown out of the choices that the character has made along his or her journey, but surprising in that the reader won’t be able to predict it.

The key to unlocking the ending of your book, I suspect, is in your character’s heart… and in the emotional arc of the story that began with the first words that you put down on paper long ago.

And I’ll bet the key to your ending will appear in your hand the moment you close your eyes … and let go of the ending that you think should appear… and allow your character the freedom to discover his or her own destiny.

So, I was thinking about endings when I finished reading two novels this past week.

The first book, Rules by Cynthia Lord, is a touching portrait of twelve-year-old Catherine's struggle to come to terms with her younger brother's autism.

It's a struggle that takes its toll on her life as she tries to make friends with her new neighbor without the embarrassment of her brother doing things--dropping his pants in public, opening doors without knocking, chewing with his mouth open--that she's come to dread when he's around.

And the ending brings a certain relief to the reader (as it does to Catherine), coming after her painful recognition that no matter how many rules she might make, nothing will change her brother from being who he is... and that she has to accept him (and people's responses to him) as part of her life.

The book's final scene shows Catherine and David gazing into the aquarium, where a toy wizard stands on the gravel despite Catherine's rule: No toys in the fish tank.

At the beginning of the book Catherine would have gotten irritated at her brother's inability to follow the rules. But now she is able to laugh.

The tiniest knock comes, and my door creaks open. David stands framed in the light from the living room. "No toys in the fish tank."

I slide my slippers on and follow.

In the aquarium a toy wizard stands on the gravel, his wand raised, mid-spell. Standing beside the castle, he's so big only his pointy shoe would fit through the tiny castle door.

Oops! Wrong spell!

And instead of a fierce dragon to slay, a huge, curious goldfish mouths the end of the wizard's hat.

I can't help but laugh.

"'"What are you laughing at, Frog?"'" David asks, worried lines cutting his forehead.

I touch the tiny frog stamp on his hand and show him mine. "'"I'm laughing at you, Toad," said Frog, "because you do look funny in your bathing suit."'"

David smiles. "'"Of course I do," said Toad. Then he picked up his clothes and went home.'"

"The end."

Tomorrow I'm going to tell Mom she has a point about David needing his own words, but other things matter, too. Like sharing something small and special, just my brother and me.

Kneeling beside David, our arms touching, our faces reflect side by side, in the glass.

I let that be enough.

The image of the two children kneeling side by side, touching, powerfully bridges the emotional distance that Catherine has had to travel over the course of the story. It's not necessarily a surprise ending. But it does feel inevitable, like a door whooshing shut, leaving just the slightest echo behind to linger in the reader's ear.

In the second book, Hearts of Stone by Kathleen Ernst, fifteen-year-old Hannah watches her father march off to join the Yankee troops and finds her heart turning to stone as his death is followed by her mother's. And another piece of her heart turns to stone when she loses her best friend, Ben, who won't speak to her after his father joins the Confederates.

With her younger brother and twin sisters, Hannah takes to the road, leaving behind their home on Cumberland Mountain for Nashville. She's hoping to find her aunt there instead of staying home and letting the Preacher separate the children and send them to different families.

But Nashville only brings more grief, hardening Hannah's heart even more. Once there the children discover that their aunt, too, has died. And after a harsh winter--the children barely able to survive by searching for cigar ends to resell--Hannah's younger sister dies, too.

In Nashville, though, she meets Ben again, and they manage to overcome their separate grief to join together as survivors and return home.

The final scene of the book shows Hannah and Ben lingering by a river on their way back to Cumberland Mountain, hoping to rebuild the homes that they left behind at the start of the story.

I let his words and wondering pour right down inside until that empty place in my chest filled up and spilled over, all the while searching the bank for a stone. Finally my fingers closed around a good one: flat, about the size of my palm. I heft it, turned it over. Just right.

"Let's do a double," Ben suggested. "See whose goes the farthest." He chose his stone, and we perched on the bank, ready. The late sun skittered bright on the river. "Go!" Ben shouted. Those stones went dancing across the water, into the sun, out of sight.

Again, this wasn't a surprise ending, but it had the feel of inevitability, like the line of a circle coming round to meet the point where it had started.

The reader begins to feel that sense of closure strongest, not only watching the children toss the stones across the water (as if tossing the stones of their hearts away so they can feel alive again), but listening to Hannah describe her chest, empty for so long, filling up again and spilling over.

Two different books, two different endings... each satisfying in its own way.

What about you? Can you turn to the ending of a favorite story... and explain what makes the ending so satisfying?

How do you feel as the story comes to a close?

Why do you feel this way?

Can you point to the words or phrases that draw out these feelings in you?

Share your thoughts about endings with Wordswimmer when you get a moment.

If you'd like to read Kathleen Bolton's post on endings at Writer Unboxed, visit:
http://writerunboxed.com/2007/08/27/corny-endings/

For insights into how Cynthia Lord wrote Rules, take a look at this interview:
http://cynthialord.com/pdf/rwt_interview.pdf

If you'd like more information about Cynthia Lord and her work, visit her website:
http://www.cynthialord.com/

And to read about Kathleen Ernst and her work, visit her website: http://www.distaff.net/

The Danger of Thunder

Have you ever found yourself shaken to the core by the crash of thunder?

I don't mean short claps of thunder that sound like toy guns going off next door... or a rolling succession of booms far in the distance... but the intense, ear-splitting explosion that goes off inches above your head.

Such a soul-wrenching explosion can steal your breath away... and, somehow, stop your heart, if only for a moment.. before you are able to regain your senses and run in search of shelter.

That's the kind of thunder Shelley Pearsall shapes into a character of sorts in the climax of her newest novel, Crooked River, about a Chippewa accused of murdering a trapper and held captive in the attic of an Ohio settler's cabin in 1812.

At the heart of Crooked River is this clash of cultures, a clash reflected in two different points of view that Pearsall shares with the reader.

The bulk of the story is related in a straight-forward narrative from the "white man's" view as each day two sisters, Rebecca and Laura Carver, climb the stairs in their cabin to bring food to the Chippewa.

But poetic interludes between chapters represent the Chippewa viewpoint.

Each point-of-view occupies a position outside the other's consciousness, as if poetry and prose represent two different worlds.

Gradually, Rebecca comes to see the two worlds, not as separate, but as sharing a common humanity.

As a sign of her growing change of heart toward the Chippewa, she brings him little gifts--a wild flower, an acorn, a leaf--along with his daily meals, and he gives her keepsakes in return--colorful beads, a delicate feather.

And during the trial, when Rebecca realizes that witnesses are lying to compel a guilty verdict from the jury, she decides to act to save Amik, even if it means going against her strong-willed father's beliefs and her own culture's code of conduct.

On the morning before the hanging, Rebecca borrows clothes from her brother and changes into them before dawn. She plans to climb the gallows and cut the hanging rope so it will break once Amik is strung up.

Meanwhile, Amik--imprisoned in the attic the entire story--places his faith in the Thunder Beings (mythical spirits) to rescue him. He is confident of their power, especially since he has seen them in a dream and feels confident that they will save him.

The climax of the story is a remarkable melding of these two arcs--Rebecca's action and Amik's belief in the power of myths and dreams--which have been building beneath the surface of the story all along.

On the morning of the hanging, a terrifying thunder storm erupts, sweeping out of the sky and wiping out the Carver's cornfield. The storm disperses the crowd watching the hanging, but not before they see Amik's limp body placed in the coffin.

After the storm has passed, everyone returns to the gallows and finds the body... gone.

Like the crowd, the reader is left wondering what happened. Did Amik die? Did someone steal his body? Who--or what--may have rescued him? (Don't worry... Pearsall answers these questions before the end of the story)

Some readers may find themselves objecting at this point to a solution that comes from heaven (a deus ex machina resolution).

Others may find themselves frustrated that Rebecca doesn't do more, or that Amik himself doesn't manage to mastermind his own escape (perhaps with the help of his lawyer and friend, Peter Kelley).

But if you look carefully at the "thunderous" conclusion to this tale, you'll see these two solutions reflect the deep division between the two cultures that's at the heart of the story.

One resolution requires Rebecca to cut the rope... and act to save him, compelled by her conscience to do the right thing for a fellow human being.

The other invokes the Thunder Beings... very real creatures in Amik's world... who come to rescue him, blending fantasy and reality in ways that are true to his consciousness.

Together, these different resolutions show us how two views of the world can co-exist, and attest to a common humanity that all of us share, even when the occupants of each world are unaware of their connection.

The next time you hear the rumble of thunder in your story, take care. A plot that relies on external or supernatural forces to resolve itself doesn't always succeed.

But in the hands of an accomplished storyteller like Pearsall, it succeeds because of the dramatic way that she shaped that external force (the Thunder Beings) into the story earlier, creating a character who Amik--and her readers--could believe in.

For more information about Shelley Pearsall and her work, check out her website: http://www.shelleypearsall.com/.

To learn more about the use (and potential pitfalls) of deus ex machine resolutions, check out:
http://noggs.typepad.com/the_reading_experience/2004/05/in_the_maysumme.html
http://www.write-on.org/story/2003/8/1/143429/2740
http://groups.msn.com/romancewritingtips/endings.msnw

On Ambiguous Endings

Two earlier posts on endings ("Finding the North Star" and "Toward the Light: More on Endings") prompted one of Wordswimmer's readers to respond with a thoughtful note about her own expectations in regard to endings, especially in relationship to Walter Dean Myers' Monster and Terry Trueman's Stuck in Neutral.

Galen Longstreth wrote:

When I read the "Finding the North Star" piece on endings, I began thinking of some books I've read that have intentionally ambiguous endings. Bruce writes that an ending should fulfill a promise, and if that promise is broken, "readers will walk away disappointed." Books like Terry Trueman's Stuck in Neutral and Walter Dean Myers's Monster came to mind as books that have ambiguous endings and yet did not leave me disappointed.

Stuck in Neutral is a novel narrated by a teenaged boy, Shawn, who has Cerebral Palsy. Whereas he appears to others as "retarded" because of the limits of his brain functions, he in fact has a very active mental and emotional life, and is able to remember everything he's ever heard. Shawn's parents divorced when Shawn's father could no longer bear to deal directly with the needs of his son. Shawn's father is so overwhelmed with his son's condition that he regularly entertains the thought of killing his child to spare him (Shawn) any pain or discomfort (and probably to spare himself the pain as well). At the end of the book, Shawn's father is at his bedside, telling Shawn "I love you," and holding a pillow in his hands (which readers understand will serve as a murder weapon if the father so chooses). In the final paragraphs, Shawn experiences a seizure, and we do not know what happens.

In Monster, Steve Harmon is accused of being involved in a murder. The book includes two forms of narration - Steven's prison journal and a screenplay that he writes as a way of showing the trial in the courtroom. We never know for sure whether Steve played a part in the murder. In other words, we never know for sure whether he is guilty. He is given a verdict of "not guilty," but not in a way that convinces readers of his innocence. He never says, in either narrative voice, "I did not do this."

Where does an ambiguous ending leave the reader? Has a promise not been fulfilled? Don't I want to know whether Steve really did it? Don't I want to know whether Shawn's father killed him? Is a book not as good because the ending is not tied tightly?

I found Bruce's piece "Toward the Light: More on Endings" very helpful as I was thinking about the issue of ambiguity. I took his suggestion and went directly to the text. First I read the endings of each of these books, and then read the beginnings.

At the end of Stuck in Neutral, Shawn literally asks himself a question: "What will my dad do?" It is the same question the readers are asking. In the beginning of the novel, Shawn tells readers everything he is good at and what he loves about his life, and also about his Cerebral Palsy. The emotional crux of the first chapter, however, is when Shawn says, "My being born changed everything for all of us, in every way. My dad didn't divorce my mom, or my sister, Cindy, or my brother, Paul - he divorced me."

After re-reading this beginning, I read the ending of the book much differently. Shawn is so happy to have his father at his bedside. There is a moment when Shawn's eyes (the muscles in which he cannot voluntarily control) happen to meet his father's eyes. Never have they looked at each other this way, and it means the world to Shawn. Whether Shawn dies during his seizure or not, he knows now how much his father loves him, and that is worth as much to Shawn as life itself. "Either way," he says, "whatever he [my dad] does, I'll be soaring." The ending is connected to the beginning, and in that connection, the ambiguity disappears, at least insofar as it could disappoint.

In Monster, we witness the jury giving Steve a verdict of "not guilty" and Steve tells us a little bit about his life after prison. But in the courtroom, after the winning verdict, when he turns to give his lawyer a hug, "she stiffens and turns to pick up her papers from the table." The look on Steven's face, as described in his screen play, is "like one of the pictures they use for psychological testing, or some strange beast, a monster." In the final journal entry, after the conclusion of the trial, Steve describes his use of a video camera to film his life.

In the beginning of the novel, Steve describes his jail cell, particularly the mirror in it. When he looks into it, he doesn't recognize his own face. "It doesn't look like me," he writes. "I couldn't have changed that much in a few months. I wonder if I will look like myself when the trial is over."

This statement connects directly to the very end of the novel, when Steve writes, "That's why I take the films of myself. I want to know who I am. . . I want to look at myself a thousand times to look for one true image."

Again, ambiguity takes a back seat, as we see that guilty or not-guilty are in some ways less important than how Steve will be able (or not) to live with himself for the rest of his life. How does he perceive himself? How has he changed and at what point will he or was he able to recognize himself again?

While we may have thought that Myers promised us the truth about whether or not Steve committed the crime, we learn that in fact, Myers has offered a different promise, maybe a deeper promise, about the changing self and one's relationship to one's self.

Have other readers found stories with seemingly ambiguous endings, only to discover after a second or third reading that the endings didn't seem as ambiguous as they first appeared?

What about endings that may have seemed clear-cut... only to grow more ambiguous over time?

Why not share your experiences--and your expectations of what makes a satisfying ending-- with Wordswimmer, too?

For more on Walter Dean Myers and Monster, check out
http://www.northern.edu/hastingw/myers.html and also http://www.teenreads.com/authors/au-myers-walterdean.asp.

For more on Terry Trueman and Stuck in Neutral, take a look at an interview that appears at http://www.jubileebooks.co.uk/jubilee/magazine/authors/terry_trueman/terry_trueman_interview.asp.

P.S. Thanks, Galen, for contributing your insights on endings.

Toward The Light: More On Endings.

Endings, like plants, grow toward the light.

They are seeds planted at the beginnings of our stories.

As the story unfolds that seed--that promise--pushes through the ground, its energy and determination carrying readers toward the light at the end of the story.

To find the seed in a story, you might want to compare the first page with the last page.

Look for the seed that was planted on the first page and see if you can find it fully grown on the last, casting its shadow back on each page as the story moves toward its inevitable conclusion.

In The Bamboo Flute, for instance, Gary Disher, an Australian writer, explores the intimate interior of a 12 year-old boy's heart.

The story, set in Australia in the 1930's, begins with Paul remembering the days before his family suffered from poverty... before his father's bitterness and exasperation over lack of money distanced him from the family.

From the opening passage, Disher shows us Paul struggling with the way his father's despair has sapped the joy out of his life and swept the family's love of music--his mom's and his own--out of their home.

Here's how Disher begins:

"There was once music in our lives, but I can feel it slipping away. Men are tramping the dusty roads, asking for work, a sandwich, a cup of tea. My father is bitter and my mother is sad. I have no brothers, no sisters, no after-school friends. The days are long. No one has time for music."

Now, ask yourself what you learn immediately in this passage?

In the first sentence--the first clause--you already sense Paul's loss, don't you? "There was once music in our lives." And now it's gone.

His life once contained something beautiful, something that he loved... and it's been torn from his fingers by the Depression... and by his father's bitterness.

What else do you hear rippling beneath the surface in this opening passage?

Perhaps Paul's painful sense of solitude without music?

No one besides Paul has "time for music." He's alone... in his daydreams, in which he dreams of music... of violins (which he imagines his father's huge hands might break)... and flutes.

But Paul's not alone for long. One day one of the men tramping the dusty road in front of his house stops to ask for a cup of tea.

That's how Paul meets Eric the Red, a penniless tramp looking for work and hand-outs. He's one of the many drifters who Paul and his fellow classmates at school are warned to stay away from.

But when Eric the Red surprises Paul by playing a flute, Paul is irresistably drawn to the man and his music despite all the warnings. He trusts the man because of the music, though he knows his father would forbid him from meeting with Eric if he knew.

With Eric the Red's help, Paul carves his own flute from a stalk of bamboo growing near an old house where Eric's hiding out. And little by little, as he teaches himself to play, music returns to Paul's life again.

But how can he share share this discovery and new-found pleasure with his father, who grows day by day more bitter over the family's poverty and the lengthening line of men asking for hand-outs?

Not until Paul summons the courage to show his father the flute (and the gift of a letter-opener that Eric the Red carved and gave him) does Paul reveal his friendship with Eric.

And in this culminating moment of intimacy, Paul's father shares his own secrets. He pulls out of the closet the small pieces of wood and metal that he carved while, like Eric the Red, he served at the front during the last war.

This moment of recognition softens Paul's father's heart and brings new-found understanding to both father and son. And it's this new understanding that seems to melt away the bitterness in his father's heart and bring the two close again.

Here's how Disher ends the story:

"We sit like that for a while, touching everything--my flute, his carvings.
Then he stands in his decisive way and packs everything away again.
As he's going out the door, he turns and points at Eric the Red's letter opener. 'In the future, you be a bit more careful who you talk to, hear?'
It's almost the old voice and manner, but this time he can't quite keep the music out."

At the end of the story is the seed that Disher planted early on. Finally we understand what has been at stake for Paul all along.

Not only did Paul need to bring music back into his life, but, more importantly, he needed to regain the close relationship that he had lost with his father.

Now try this: look at the ending of a story. Take a look at the last few paragraphs; then turn to the opening.

See if you can trace the arc of the story--the arc of the character's journey--from the opening sentence to the final paragraph.

Look for the seed of the ending in the beginning.

And watch how that seed grows into a fully leafed plant by the end, straining toward the light to illuminate the main character's innermost yearning.

Finding the North Star.

Finding an ending for your story can sometimes feel like searching the sky for the North Star on a cloudy night.

You have a sense of where the star might be... but it's hard to pin-point exactly.

So, how do you go about finding the "right" ending?

Well, some writers say they need to know the ending of their stories before they even begin to put words on paper; others write their stories in order to discover how they end.

Either way, an ending needs to work like a combination lock.

As you write the final scene, the tumbler has to fall into place, opening a new door on the story and allowing you (and, eventually, your readers) to look back at the story--all the way to the beginning--in an illuminating light.

Whether you write knowing your ending or write to discover it, the ending needs to emerge out of your main character's basic desires.

From the very beginning of your story, a character's deepest yearning will point toward the ending, even if the character is unaware of the goal toward which he or she is striving.

Like beginnings, endings are part of the promise that a writer makes to a reader. If that promise is unfulfilled, readers will walk away from the story disappointed and, ultimately, frustrated by the "broken" promise.

What is that promise?

At its heart, the ending promises this: a resolution that brings the reader a sense of satisfaction. The character or characters get what they deserve (either for good or ill); their desires are fulfilled (or unfulfilled) in ways that a reader finds satisfying.

According to Janet Burroway in Writing Fiction, "Whether or not the lives of the characters end, the story does, and we are left with a satisfying sense of completion."

And how does a story arrive at a satisfying sense of completion?

Burroway shares novelist Michael Shaara's definition of story as a power struggle between equal forces, and, about endings, suggests this: "Finally an action will occur that will shift the power irretrievably in one direction."

"The crisis action is the last battle and makes the outcome inevitable," Burroway writes. "There can no longer be any doubt who wins the particular territory--though there can be much doubt about moral victory. When this has happened the conflict ends with a significant and permanent change--which is the definition, in fiction, of a resolution."

Whether an ending shifts power in one direction or another, or serves as the inevitable outcome of a battle over territory (emotional or physical), one thing is certain: endings ultimately need to reflect in a deep way the change a character has undergone since the beginning of the story.

The arc of that change--and the character's gradual growth along that arc--should be able to be traced throughout the story, from beginning to end, with the end reinforcing all that has come before it to shed new light on the arc and on the character's journey.

Perhaps a "true" ending is like the appearance of the North Star once the clouds have cleared.

It sheds a clear light on the direction the characters have been traveling, and, at last, reveals their path in a way that illuminates not only their journey but ours, as well.