It’s not unusual for me to be in a muddle about dates, and confuse or forget when things are supposed to happen. I think I mentioned last week that it was going to be writing group yesterday, and I wrote about the challenging subject – to write something which comes after the end of another story/book/film etc. A great challenge, but it needed some serious thinking, and I was struggling – so I was pleased when on Tuesday it turned out that writing group is next week! Maybe it’s because the pressure lifted, but suddenly I had an idea,. I was cleaning my teeth – but my idea had nothing to do with that, so don’t think ‘Jaws’ or killer dentists, instead an idea about a story almost everyone knows – but I won’t reveal more until I’ve written it and shared it with the writing group.
While I was pondering on what to write I thought about the endings of novels, and how important it is to get a satisfactory ending. It’s so annoying and frustrating to finish a book feeling disappointed because the story fizzled out, or a convenient previously unknown character arrives to reveal all, or worse still to unnecessarily unexpectedly kill off someone just to have a surprise ending. I wrote this several years ago:
A satisfactory ending isn’t necessarily a happy ending, it isn’t necessarily a ‘closed’ ending, by which I mean ‘…and they all lived happily ever after…’, it isn’t necessarily the ending the reader would have hoped for, but it is an ending where the events have finished, the situations resolved, the characters sorted and ready to move on in their imaginary after-life beyond ‘THE END’. The reader closes the book with a contented sigh and although maybe sorry that what they had so enjoyed has finished, they do not feel cheated or let down.
Thinking about endings, or writing what happened after the ending would, I guess, allow you to rectify an unsatisfactory ending (unsatisfactory in your opinion) or to pursue favourite characters into the next part of their lives. However, I didn’t really want to do this for the writing group challenge. I began to think about different types of narrative, and thought back to the workshops I did for the Weston Literary Festival. I had an idea… I haven’t written it yet, but it’s there, fermenting!
I wonder what the others will write about?!
Lois Elsden 