Ask A Wench--Satisfying Endings

 

                                    Behind the scenes, we wenches have animated discussions, and after reading a particularly disappointing book, one of us brought up this topic. "Do you want all your endings to be satisfying? Or can you handle an ambiguous ending as Gone, Girl?  What makes for a satisfying ending?"
 

Mary Jo:  A lot depends on what kind of book it is.  For a romance, I want my happy ending!  I want the characters to have made a commitment, and I want to believe that they are right for each other and they have enough love and ability to deal with life’s challenges that they’ll be together “till death do they part.”

 “Satisfying” is a different measure.  “Happily ever after” is what make romances end satisfactorily, but other genres, such as mystery and science fiction and fantasy and women’s fiction, are different. 

 In epic fantasy, for example, “satisfying” means the triumph of good over evil.  Harry Potter defeats Lord Voldemort and loses some cherished friends in the process, but good wins.  (And Harry does get his girl. <G>)

 In mystery, “satisfying” usually means justice is done.  This is why Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express ends in a satisfying way: no murderer is arrested, but justice has most certainly been done. 

 For some books, an open-ended sense of possibility is a satisfying ending.  This is not uncommon in women’s fiction, where the heroine has rebuilt her life and good things lie ahead.  But I really, really do not like books that just sort of end, with no sense of resolution.  We have real life for that!

 Nicola:
As a general rule I don’t find ambiguous endings satisfying in fiction. I know there are arguments in favour of ambiguity; that it allows the reader to make up their own ending. Although I think I have a vivid imagination I don’t usually want to do this with other authors’ books.

 If I am reading a crime novel I want justice to be meted out. If I am reading a romance I absolutely want a happy ever after. I have run into trouble with thrillers where the ending is either left open or it heads off in a direction where I feel the issues have not been resolved. I remember getting to the end of Fatherland, a gripping thriller by Robert Harris, reading the last line and thinking: “And? What happens next?” I need closure!

Susan:

 I'm all for satisfying story endings, and happy satisfaction in romance in particular -- if it makes me smile or brings a tear, I'm a happy reader indeed. And I'm fine with a story ending that is not the normal happiest of endings if it's open-ended, or a bit unsettling, as long as it intrigues and doesn't flat-out disappoint or disturb. If it leads me to another book (as in The Hunger Games, for example), that's great. If it's a single book with an ending that abandons me or leaves me feeling down, I'm not only disappointed in the story and sometimes the author -- I may even feel compelled to make up my own ending in my head, and gain a little sense of closure that way.  

Emotional closure, a satisfying arc of events and character growth, is so important when I'm reading that last paragraph, that last sentence. No matter the book and its genre, I need some sort of emotional reward for the investment of my feelings, my trust, my time and the immersion of my imagination. Endings differ from one genre to another, and I'm not keen on predictability--certainly it doesn't work in mystery, where we need a bit of a surprise or the satisfaction of I-knew-it! in the last couple of chapters. And we can't always predict the consequences and outcome in a fantasy novel, nor would I want to do that, as it would lose a lot of momentum for me if I saw it coming. Romances always have, in their way, predictable endings, so the delight and fascination of surprise rests in the characters and the story. An emotionally satisfying ending in romance is being able to share in that expansive sense of love and well-being. Though if that romance ending is a bit too sentimental for me, if it's too sweet, I'm not as happy. I like a little tartness with a sweet ending.

 

Jo Beverley:
To satisfy me, the ending of a book must be clear— no deliberate ambiguity. I  say deliberate, because endings are sometimes open to interpretation, and that may not be a disaster for me as long as I can interpret an ending I want. The ending I want will almost certainly be triumphant— that is, the protagonist or protagonists win the battle at the end of the journey I've made with them in reading the story.

That's why I write popular fiction, and why I read it. In romance, I want the couple together and heading into a delightful future that I can believe. Not a last minute fix that uses "I love you" and lust to paper over the cracks. I am not mellow or forgiving with authors who fail me on this.

On a more subtle level, I like an ending to have the right "mass." Sometimes the ingredients are there but they're too quick; sometimes it's spread out too thin. It's not easy writing endings and it's scary how easy it is to weaken or even ruin a book with the wrong one.

Pat Rice:
I cut my teeth on the likes of Zane Grey, where the hero often rode off into the sunset with his horse, leaving the girl behind. At age nine, that suited me. By age twelve, I’d become an avid connoisseur of Agatha Christie, until I realized she wasn’t fair with the reader. She’d pull clues out of the hat at the end that the reader couldn’t possibly know. Even at that tender age, I knew she was making it easier on herself but cheating me as a reader. I was quite content with her books until then.

So a “satisfying ending” is often determined by the reader’s experience. I’m perfectly happy reading literary novels that I know won’t end happily. I’m capable of predicting which way the author will take the story, and I enjoy it more if the ending takes a shocking twist. I like the unexpected. Some people don’t. “Satisfying” is in the eye of the beholder.

But genre fiction brings with it certain expectations, and as a reader, I trust the author to meet them. If a romance matches a different man than I expected to the female lead, as MJ says, I want to know they’ll be happy together. If a mystery ends up with no murderer being brought to justice, I want to know that justice has been served in some manner. If the author murders the romantic heroine at the end, I’ll never ever read her again.

Anne:
In general, leaving the finish of a book all open and unresolved isn't, for me, a satisfying ending but a frustrating one.  I know unresolved endings are supposed to be more "lifelike" but I don't read fiction for a lifelike experience — I have life and the news for that. I want to read a book that leaves me feeling good instead of gutted.

Loose threads for me are as undesirable in fiction as they are on a brand new garment. I like my couples paired off in such a way that I know they're going to be happy, I want the pregnant woman to have a healthy baby, I like my murderers caught and for justice to be done, I want the bully to get their comeuppance, the mean trickster to get the tables turned on them, I want the plucky orphan kid to end up in a good place, the lost dog to be found, and so on.

I don't mind if it's a series, and I'll find out some of these things in the next book, but in general, if I've invested in a set of characters and a story and a world, I like to feel as though I know how it ends, even if it's the fairy tale "and they all lived happily ever after."

Joanna Bourne:
A lot of books end ambiguously.  I do not find this emotionally satisfying, but I go along, respecting the author's intentions, y'know, and I nod at the end and try to feel somewhat wiser and generally don't succeed.  It is rather like eating cooked spinach and tofu in this regard.  One feels vaguely virtuous and healthier but not particularly enthralled by the meal.

I've always felt Real Life contains a plenitude of puzzlement and uncertainty.  If I came up short in that department, I could read popular articles on quantum physics and get uneasy about the very reality of Reality.  How much more ambiguity does one need?

My genre reading has to wind up tidy-like with all the bows tied and the car put in 'park' and turned off. 

I want the murderer revealed at the end of the Mystery.  I want something bad to happen to the villain, generally.  If an Elf, a Dwarf, a Wizard, a Thief, and the Young Hero set out on a quest -- by golly, I want the Magic Whatzit of Garwash discovered at the end and the Evil Usurping King overthrown.

And in Romance -- nothing, nothing, nothing replaces the joy of a Happy Ever After for me.  That's my payoff.  That's why I read Romance and why Romance is my own true love in books.

A Romance without a conclusive, unambiguous Happy Ending would be ... if I may misquote and misuse Donne here . . . "Whoever writes Romance, if she do not propose the right true end of the love story, she's one that goes to sea for nothing but to make her sick."

A Romance without that promise of a simple happy future is like decaf coffee.  I mean -- what's the point?

Comments

[Mary Jo Putney]

I think that we've all proved why we write romance: we want the happily ever after, we want the closure. Every now and then I read a "romance" by an author who wants to be original by blowing off the HEA. Move over to lit fic, please, and leave my romance endings alone!

[Patricia Rice]

Even litfic needs a SATISFYING ending. What's the point of reading the story otherwise?

[Janga]

I believe in the author's autonomy to write whatever ending she wishes. I also believe in the reader's autonomy to choose not to invest her dollars and minutes in an ending that fails to satisfy. For me, that means that in the fiction I read I want a sense not just of closure but of rightness. Even with literary fiction, my favorites are those that give me this feeling. In Eudora Welty’s Losing Battles, Jack and Gloria head home singing “Bringing in the Sheaves.” Some interpret that ending as Gloria’s defeat, but the bible verse from which the song’s title is taken promises a harvest of joy. I choose to read the ending with that in mind. Alice’s Walker’s The Color Purple is filled with the horrors of incest, abuse, racism, and more, but it ends with Celie having discovered the transformative powers of love. In Marilynn Robinson’s Gilead, the narrator is dying, but what the book has to say about living, forgiving, and finding grace—whether one defines that word in secular or religious contexts—makes the story life-affirming. One of my favorite ending lines is from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird: "He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning." (I’m not sure what it means that all these are by women authors. I have to think about that.)

In the mysteries I read, I want justice to prevail, although “justice” can be defined in different ways. In women’s fiction, I can accept a happy-for-now or happier-that-when I-started ending, but in romance, I want an unambiguous happily-ever-after ending, one that I can believe in because of who the characters are separately and together, not just because an epilogue shows them with three precocious children and another on the way. However, I’m enough of a sentimentalist to enjoy the epilogue if I believe in the HEA. :)

[Jorie]

Good morning, dear Wenches! :)

Initially, I must confess, my first instinct was to discount my head and reply with my heart: that I truly believe in an ending of a story that concludes the premise that wrapped me up into the characters' lives, however, that would only be a half-truth! As Ms. Putney mentioned, it is very much dependant upon which genre your reading and the sort of book your drawn to read! :)

I believe for me, the most shattering instance of an unsatisfied ending in literature is the same for me in my favourite serial on tv: where your more perplexed about the merit of the story than when you first began it! Ambiguous endings are one thing, but if the reader has to strive too hard towards a resolution in their own minds, I find myself betwixt and befuddled why the writer wrote it at all!?

On the other side of the spectrum, I never finish a book that has rendered me irked beyond repair! If it feels as though the characters are acting/speaking against type OR the pacing is clearing muddled, or half of the plot/dialogue points are not yet fully fleshed out -- basically, if I'm sitting there with a book in hand re-envisioning the entire whole of the story I put it down and try another! :)

Ms. King, my sentiments exactly! Apparently, I too, am an emotionally connected reader and I seek the same as you do! :)

Ms. Beverely, nothing annoys me more than a rushed ending that leaves you breathless and curious at the very same time as to why it had to all be 'smushed together' and rapidly repaired all grievances in the ending chapter! Talk about whiplash! It's like a serial or film that has lost it's funding and everything is crammed into the final five minutes of screen time! Aye!

[Patricia Rice]

Janga, you make an important point--some authors use metaphors and symbolism to provide the ending. If a reader doesn't grasp those, then they may walk away dissatisfied. I'm all for making the ending obvious so all readers can enjoy it, but I suspect literary fiction has higher expectations.

And I think Jorie points that out--if we're left confused, who wants to read it?

[Lil]

On occasion I have run into an "ending" that is dissatisfying because it isn't really an ending. The book just stops.

I've run into this most often in first novels, especially those that are clearly at least semi-autobiographical. The books start out wonderfully, full of vivid characters and settings, and then just…end.

I've always assumed this was precisely because the book was semi-autobiographical and the author was young and didn't know what they end would be. I can have sympathy, but it was always disappointing.

[Louis]

I definitely want the HEA. That's why I almost always read the ending first.
Though with the Kindle it is much more of an effort and I've started skipping reading the end.

[Patricia Rice]

Editors ought to know that a book needs an ending! There's no excuse for non-endings. And Louis, I don't have a Kindle, but I bet if you touch the screen somewhere, it will bring up a Contents symbol. It's really easy to navigate to the end there.

I only read endings when someone has told me they don't like the end, or if I'm partially into the book and really disliking it. I check the ending to see if it's worth suffering through!

[Shannon]

I do read genre fiction because it usually delivers a satisfying ending. I am troubled by the number of romances (not that many, just enough for me to notice) that do use lust or lots of "I love yous" to paste the ending together. A couple of romances have been striking in that the words "I love you" are never uttered yet it's obvious that the hero and heroine are madly in love and perfectly mated.

The one sub-genre of literature that hasn't been mentioned is tragedies. (I am considering going to an HD-theater opera and yes it is a tragedy.) In the right mood, these are satisfying at one level and sad at another. Many, however, are based on patriarchal morality in which an independent woman dies because she isn't moral, is powerful, is intelligent, etc.

I also used read third word literature to understand another culture. It was extremely depressing to see life at its most difficult, witness great human struggles, and then a tragic ending. Woman at Point Zero by an Egyptian feminist is one of those sad, sad stories, and she argues that the story is more truth than fiction.

[Donna]

I've loved reading all of your opinions, and I totally agree! I guess that's why I love you all and read your books. :-)

I've noticed a very disturbing trend in lit fic in recent years toward REAL life, grit, sorrow and tragedy. The older one gets, the more one has already been gutted and tossed around by life - I certainly don't need to spend my leisure time experiencing it in my reading.

[Donna]

And I forgot to say that UN-satisfying endings are why people write fan fiction! ;-)

[Patricia Rice]

I do wonder why people feel it necessary to write fiction about the tragedy of real life. That's what newspapers are about, and nonfiction. I've always thought fiction was meant to hold a subject up to the light, examine it, and then provide some understanding. I could be wrong. It happens.

[Janice]

I don't like endings that are ambiguous in the sense that I don't know what the what happened. Did the alien robot crocoshark eat the guy or what? I want the author to be plain about some things.

I don't read much mainstream literary fiction anymore, not because it's depressing or too hooked on symbolism, so much as because it's often issue-driven, as if the story and characters are only there to have someone's political views tied to them. Character and story are more important than that. When it's twisted out of what feels reasonable to me in order to fit someone's thought experiment, I think it's not art anymore. I may not like the ending, but it has to make sense in terms of the story, not as some way to "prove" an arbitrary point stemming from the author's views.

[ELF]

I agree, I can be depressed or left with unsatisfying endings by looking at the world around me...I like my books to end with a definite resolution, preferably a happy ending!

[Jo Banks]

I admit I have a very bad habit I nearly always read the end first!If I don't like the end then I don't spend my money on the book!However I still get caught, the book where the story has rambled along quiet happily and suddenly it is as if the author has looked at the clock thought Hell its time for bed or something and tied all the ends up in about two pages! Yes I want the ends tied up whatever genre I am reading the baddy has to suffer, the heroine and hero walk (sort of) off into the sunset but not all in about a hundred words!And as for books with no real ending as Joanna said its like decaf coffee what is the point ?

[Patricia Rice]

Janice, I enjoy reading social issues when represented by character (and setting as character). I want to see how the issue affects "real" people, and that's what the author has to do--give me "real" people that I can believe in and root for.

LOL, on the hurried endings, Jo! Not bedtime but deadlines afflict some authors. But I agree, we invest too much time and money in a book to be rushed off at the end.

[Susan/DC]

A satisfying ending and a happy ending are not always the same for me, but it depends on the genre and on the definition of "happy". For example, in John LeCarre's "The Constant Gardener", the ending is tragic in many ways but is satisfying because the hero has discovered (despite much misinformation fed to him along the way) that his wife loved him and that he is, in fact, not merely the middle management bureaucrat he thought himself but an actual hero. The book has a character arc that left me satisfied, even if I felt both happy and devastated about what happened. OTOH, in my romance reading I definitely want a happy ending, even if only happy-for-now but with the possibility of the HEA.

[PegS]

I share the same feeling Susan/DC does. I want a story to have an arc, and at the end of a great story--whether it has a happy or tragic or simply melancholy ending--the conclusion has got to feel inevitable. I like the sense of a well-crafted story that drives toward an ending that, in hindsight, is the only real possible ending in service of the novel. I don't mind a sense of ambiguity, hence why I don't mind the melancholy, but I do have to have a sense of what might happen after.

That said, of course I want my romances to have a happy ending. Granted, when I look at some of the romances I read in the 80s, it's amazing how many actually ended with death. I don't think I could handle that now, and would turn to straight fiction if I wanted that possibility.

[Patricia Rice]

PegS makes a good point. I'm reading some of my old more "saga-ish" historical romances and I do kill off people. Not the protagonists. But we had more bitter/sweet moments and took things to wider levels back then. The romance focus has become very narrow and demands a truly celebratory ending these days.

[Jorie]

Hallo, Hallo dear Wenches,

I finally have a book to mention that gave me an ending that isn't resolved per se! I have been nestled into "The Golem and the Jinni" throughout the week, yet what I wasn't expecting when I concluded it was a [potential] cliffhanger mixed with unresolved conflictions! It doesn't take away from my enjoyment of this novel, but ooh! I thought the whole point of the journey with the Golem AND the Jinni was finally being able to unmask the knowledge needed to, er, accomplish a few things! I'll leave it open-ended in case no one has yet read it!

Now, I do think anyone who loves historicals, time slips, and mythology will appreciate the depth to this novel because Ms. Wecker is a wordsmith who paints such a clear palette of where you are, you cannot help but be pulled into her vortex!

It is the ending that I'm conflicted about,...because the very last two pages read more like a "prequel" to a "sequel",...or at the very least, the next installment in the continuing story,...