Writing Advice #34: Q&A Pt. 5 - Endings
Posted on: 12/30/09This week, I'm going to answer two questions from the original MySpace version of this series. (For those of you new to the Writing Advice BLog: I originally ran a similar series on MySpace a couple of years ago.)
I just really like these two questions and I think they're good things to think about as we look ahead to a New Year, fresh with possibility.
Here we go:
Recent Writing Advice Blogs...
- Fare-thee-well (03/09/10)
- My Method (03/02/10)
- What to Write (02/24/10)
- Ending Scenes/Friends as Critics (02/16/10)
- Copyright (02/09/10)
Writing Advice Archive
What in your opinion is the best part of being an author?
That's such a tough question! There are so many wonderful things
about this job. If you put a gun to my head and told me that I had to
pick one, I would probably say the best thing about it is hearing from
people who've read and enjoyed my work. There's just nothing else in
the world like it. You write your book in solitude, you publish it at a
distance, it goes to stores all over the world... And you never know if
anyone bought or read or liked it until you get an e-mail or a letter
from a reader. And that's when you feel great.
Next question:
If you're writing a story or something, in terms of endings, is it usually better to go with the ending that you think your readers will want, or is it better to go with an ending that you've been thinking about since you started the story?
Oh, boy! This one sort of hits right at the core of Being a Writer.
I'm going to tell you what I think and my advice may someday cost those who follow my advice
millions of dollars and the cheering of crowds, but you know what?
You'll feel better about yourself. (Eat your vegetables, too.)
When
you go with the ending "that you think your readers will want," more
often than not, you're chasing dollars. You're thinking, "Well, I know
how I WANT the book to end, but it will be more appealing if I do it
THIS way instead. And if it's more appealing, I'll get the Big Bucks
and the swooning, hot dancing girls (or boys) and the phat ride (you can tell I'm old
-- I said 'phat') and all that stuff."
And that's all well and
good because God knows we'd all like the Big Bucks and all the rest, but if you're anything like me, that book will forever be tainted
for you. Every time you look at it -- every time you THINK about it --
you'll think, "Man. It SHOULD have ended THIS way, not THAT way..."
That
would drive me NUTS, no matter how much money it brought in for me, or
how happy it made readers. I would know, deep in my heart, that that
book was WRONG.
My first book had an ending that -- to put it
lightly -- displeased a lot of people. The single most common comment I
get from readers about that book is, "Why did it end this way?"
That
happens because people are -- for all intents and purposes --
programmed by our popular culture to expect a certain kind of ending.
When they don't get it, they're unhappy. In the case of my book,
everyone wanted Fanboy and Kyra to make up and kiss and go off into the
sunset together at the end. And they didn't. And, boy, did I hear about
it!
When I wrote the book, I knew that people would be upset
about the ending. But I didn't change it. Because it was the ending I
knew the book HAD to have. It was the ending I had in my brain from the
very first sentence. Every single word I wrote led up to that ending --
to change it just to make someone ELSE happy would be a betrayal of the
entire story.
And, yeah, there was pressure on me to change it. Early readers asked me to change it. My editor asked me if it "had" to end that way. I stuck to my guns.
Here's the thing: The fact that people
were so devastated and upset by that ending PROVED to me that it
worked! It kept people thinking about the book and the characters, long
after they turned the last page. That's an ending that works.
Sometimes, when you wrap things up in a nice package at the end, you
just make it easier for the readers to toss the book aside and forget
about it.
Look, we write for an audience. But our FIRST audience is US. If YOU don't love your book, no one else will, either.
Maybe that's all a bit too philosophical for you. Maybe you're not convinced. That's fine. Listen to this, then:
There's no point "chasing" the ending the readers want...because you'll never know for sure.
If
you get to the end of your book and you have the choice of selecting
Ending A or Ending B, how can you REALLY be sure that readers are going
to like one more than the other? You can't know. It's impossible. Oh,
sure, you can SUSPECT. You can be PRETTY CONFIDENT. But you can't know
to a 100% certainty.
This means that you're left with two possibilities:
1) You end the book with an ending that doesn't make you happy, on the CHANCE that it will make readers happy.
2) You end the book the way you've always wanted to, KNOWING that it'll make at least one person (you) very happy.
I think it's pretty obvious what side I come down on. Audiences are fickle things. Write YOUR story the way YOU see it.
Next week: Outlines -- Threat or Menace???
Until then, be good to yourselves, have a happy New Year, and feel free to put questions in the comments below.
ShareThis
Write a comment
By: Daisy Whitney on Wed December 30, 2009, 08:52:39
By: Barry on Wed December 30, 2009, 09:43:31
By: Megan aka Teen Librarian on Wed December 30, 2009, 10:56:50
By: Barry on Wed December 30, 2009, 11:02:58
By: Jess on Wed December 30, 2009, 18:04:46
By: June on Thu December 31, 2009, 19:14:14
By: Indie on Sun January 03, 2010, 07:00:22
By: Nana on Sun January 03, 2010, 22:18:11
By: Allison Morris on Thu January 07, 2010, 20:28:10
By: Ariella on Tue April 27, 2010, 15:20:41