How NOT to End a Book

I discovered that I wanted to write when I was about 6 or 7 and my mum had just finished reading 'The Hobbit' to me and my brother in nightly installments, complete with an excellent Smeagol voice and sound effects for fish slip-slip slithering down Smeagol's throat.

I started writing around then and still do (if somewhat sporadically). I drew elaborate maps and plotted out stories and made character profiles, even then trying to whip my world into order by over-plotting. That hasn't changed, but the ways that I end my stories certainly have. 

Meet Pip, aged 8: Fantasy enthusiast with an obsession with knights, wizards and dragons.

TYPICAL ENDINGS: "And the knight killed the dragon and the princess escaped from the mad wizard and they found each other and they alllllll lived happily ever after. Except for the poor dragon that is. The End."

At the time, this seemed like an excellent way to end a story with the knight conquering his foe and marrying a princess. Disney loved it so I did too! NEVER AGAIN.

Pip aged 13 or 14 went through a rebellious phase: Keen on horror now and a lover of dystopian futures, all the endings changed. Dramatically.

TYPICAL ENDINGS: "And everybody DIED! Everybody! Even, no ESPECIALLY, the orphan girl begging on the street corner. Stone cold dead. Add a widow weeping over there in the corner. And how about a massacre? Happy endings? They're for the weak and predictable!"

I had read 'Ender's Game' and had been in awe of the boldness of the ending. I had read 'Little Women' and remembered the shock and impact that one little death had had on me and decided to magnify that shock tenfold! No one was safe because I was on a mission to surprise and affect my readers in the same way. NOT THE WAY TO GO.

< BRIEF INTERLUDE FOR UNIVERSITY AND ALL KINDS OF DISTRACTIONS >

At the grand old age of 23ish, there was a SLIGHTLY more mature Pip: A fan of the anti-hero and characters with heroic flaws. The endings became a little more balanced but still a bit glum.

TYPICAL ENDINGS: "And the hero saved the day at great personal cost to himself which he never really recovered from and he then led a lonesome life while the people he had saved lived out their lives happily, except for that ONE character that died and we still miss."

I had read 'Hamlet' at school and fallen for him. And don't even get me started on Heathcliff. My characters mostly lived but were doomed to an isolated and unhappy fate without hope of resolution. NO MORE.

And now at the even grander old age of something that shall not be disclosed, I finally feel happy with my planned endings and I hope my future readers will too. I hope to leave my characters (and therefore readers) SATISFIED. 

- I aim to at least have some closure on one part of the character's story and struggle, but to still have plenty more story left to live after the cover is closed, because that's life. 

- There should be a cast of varied characters who all have some flaw or other, because who doesn't but we can all work on them. 

- No one needs to shoulder the whole burden of saving the world all alone because that just makes them irritating. 

- No one is left ultimately happy but no one is left irredeemably broken either, because your reader needs a little sprinkling of hope but it must be hope that they can believe in. 

- Some people live and some people die but every character moves at least a little closer to a resolution. 

That's all I've learned so far - not particularly epic advice, but it's what I aim for.

I can happily say that I have at least never ended a story with "...and I woke up and it was all a dream!" 

The Rhythm of a Good Book

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I just so happen to be a voracious reader. I'll read almost anything (well, mostly fictional unless study- or work related, but still).

My most recent conquest of the book kind is The Martian by Andy Weir.

It was one of those books one is almost compelled to pick up - not because of the author's world-wide  fame, or the books stellar reviews (no pun intended in this case, honest) - quite frankly it's not a book you've heard of as yet. One picks up books one knows nothing about under the influence of too much travel fatigue, a steadily growing level of annoyance and plain old boredom whilst waiting for a very, very late flight connection.

It has a bright cover, you see. Rather hard to miss amongst pastel-coloured book jackets covered in curli-cu-cute writing. So pick it up I did... and in the two hours I was at the airport, plus one hour on the plane, and then until 3am once I was home, I read this book.

I simply could not put it down. It's been a while since a book captured my interest like this, and oh, how I love that feeling!

Then a couple of days later I stumbled across a post on one of my favourite geeky websites (www.io9.com) that said The Martian is going to be a movie! OUT THIS YEAR!!! (yay!)

And then I went and read the comments to the post. There were many, of all shapes, sizes and flavours, but the one that really stuck with me (and which I shared with my fellow relentless writers earlier) is this one guy who said the book was boring because it was a simple string of problem-solution-problem-solution-problem-solution. Quite apart from the fact that I disagree, this made me think. 

Isn't that the basic structure of most books? Putting the hero through a series of trials, one feeding off the other, to bringe it all to a great climax? And then I realised the problem. This particular reader had missed the overall rising tension that permeated the story (probably because he missed the fact that the mere reading of logbook entries written by a protagonist does not prove that he or she in fact survived the whole ordeal). 

The tension rises and rises, problems keep cropping up, solutions have to be clobbered together, and then, finally there's the BIG PROBLEM, the one that beats them all, the one whose solution (in the case of The Martian, at least) is a matter of life or death. It is certainly a matter of grave importance to the protagonist in most cases, perhaps for a whole group of people, or, for a real bummer, a question that decides whether the world will end or not. 

The climax is the moment the whole book works towards, either resolving a physical crisis or perhaps a crisis of conscience. The climax, that breathless all-deciding moment, is usually followed by an 'ah' moment of relief (if the resolution is favourable) or despair (if it isn't). Rarely do books get away with stopping right after the climax. Most readers REQUIRE a resolution of some kind, though it does not need to be a very long one (depends on your story). If you don't resolve the overall story problems, it's highly likely that the reader will feel cheated in some way. I know I do when I come across that sort of story (rabbit-out-of-hat solutions are also in some disfavour these days).

And you know what? I can't think of a single story that does not have this sort of basic rhythm. One problem followed by a solution followed by another problem that may or may not build on the first one (or perhaps the solution of the first). Actions have consequences, after all, in real life and in books. The overall issue weaves in and out of these 'temporary' problems, but it's always there, pushing the protagonist onwards, forwards, towards the climax and the eventual resolution of the story.

This, then, is the very basic rhythm of a good book. 

If you ask me, that is. Do you agree? Do you see stories as a succession of tension and relief, building up to the big bang that has us sitting at the edge of our seat, turning pages with nary a blink of an eye in between? Or are you of the opinion that one can't find such a basic structure in stories? Can you think of a (good!) story that does not follow this sort of rhythm?