Andy Lennox: "To Vina Jie-Min Prasad: How to End a Story"

To Vina Jie-Min Prasad: How to End a Story

By Andy Lennox

            Perhaps you’ve experienced something like this: You’re 95% of the way through a book you’re really enjoying, and your excitement builds as you progress page by page towards the end of the story. You’ve become attached to a character or two, you’ve enjoyed the plotline thus far, and you even have some sort of prediction on how the story will end. Finally, you turn the last page... Boom. It’s all over. However, the ending is both concrete and not at all what you expected. Not only is the ending a complete surprise to you, but it is written in a way such that everything is final and undebatable. The main character dies. At the last minute, the world you have been exploring page by page is turned upside down as the good guys turn out to be the bad guys. This is what happened, and it is the only possible ending. Endings like these which lack some sort of ambiguity and undermine everything the reader believed to be true are, to me, extremely frustrating and can ruin what was otherwise a perfectly good work of fiction. Therefore, endings which make sense based on the developed plot and still contain at least some ambiguity or surprise bring works of fiction to a satisfying close.

            Endings that come out of nowhere or don’t connect with previous events of the story are the most frustrating to me. Personally, when reading or watching any kind of fiction, I like to attempt to recognize as much foreshadowing as possible throughout the fiction and use the information given to me by the author to predict how the story will progress and eventually end. For me, this process adds to the fun of reading and helps me comprehend what is going on throughout the story as I am paying close attention to detail. Therefore, when the predictions I make based off what I have read are obliterated by an ending that is unpredictable, I get frustrated. To me, it almost feels as if my reading of everything before the ending was entirely useless. A story I recently finished that had an ending NOTHING like this was Stardust, by Neil Gaiman. After following the main character, Tristran, through Faerie land on his quest to bring back a star for his crush, Victoria, Gaiman provides an ending which was very satisfying to me. Stardust ends with Tristran falling in love with the star, which turns out to be a girl, he set out to find for his original crush Victoria, becoming the ruler of the Faerie land he was exploring, and eventually dying of old age. At a glance, this may sound just like the terrible endings I’ve been describing.  While it may be true that Victoria reveals she is marrying another man out of nowhere, the events that follow this plot twist are informed by and can be somewhat predicted by the events during Tristran’s journey allowing for an ending that still makers sense with the plotline. An ending like this demonstrates how an author can incorporate a major plot twist at the end of the book without leaving the reader dazed and confused. This is an awesome way to end a story because let’s be honest, no one wants to read a book where you can predict everything coming to the last detail. This ending was perfect for me because it was interesting and surprising while remaining connected to the plot line.

            The other element necessary for a satisfying ending is just a bit of ambiguity. Although too much ambiguity can leave me feeling lost and result in the plotline seeming to be unresolved, at least some element of ambiguity in a fiction ending leaves the story open for my interpretation and thoughts providing me with a lasting impression of the story. On the other hand, no ambiguity in the ending means that as soon as I put the book down, the story is out of my mind, and I’m on to enjoy the next work of fiction. I prefer the first approach where I am able to continue the story in my mind and think about what could happen had the story kept going, and this is the experience that Stardust provided me with by suggesting that even following Tristran’s death, the star somehow ruled the kingdom successfully. For me, this thought process is as enjoyable as the story itself, so a slightly ambiguous ending is very important to satisfy my reading experience.