Dear Vina: Just How I Like It
By Brooke Cambra
Endings are the both the best and worst part of a
book to me because not only is the official story is ending, but also because
the story might not end the way that I want it to. I’m not saying that I want
the author to obey my every demand or that their ending was not good. The way
that I find the ending to a story truly satisfying, is if the ending matches
the rest of the story. I love so many different genres and am partial to
particular themes that I choose to read because of the emotional effect the stories
have on me. If a story is a horror story, then the ending should not be the
same kind of ending one would find in a Nicholas Sparks novel. It’s ending
should be dark and unpleasant like the rest of the story.
One of my favorite books is “Trainspotting” by Irvine
Welsh because the ending of the story is exactly like the rest of the story
leading up to it; scummy and full of deception and deceit. The story is an
unfortunate realistic fiction about a group of Scottish boys doing heroin and
suffering the consequences of drug abuse and crime and so, of course the ending
of the story would involve both drug use and crime. Irving Welsh is really good
at consistency in his stories both throughout specific stories and all of his
books. While his stories were not based on his life directly, he wrote about
the things he knew best which allowed his writing to be consistent until the
very end. Welsh is as extreme and provocative in life as his characters are in
his stories and is one of my favorite authors because of this.
P.S. I also like really weird and dark endings but
that has less to do with the writing style and more about why my mother worries
for me. I have added my favorite Irvine Welsh quotes at the end so you can
really understand what I am talking about.
"We start off with high hopes, then we bottle
it. We realize that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big
answers. We develop all those long-winded ideas which just interpret the
reality of our lives in different ways, without really extending our body of
worthwhile knowledge, about the big things, the real things. Basically, we live
a short disappointing life; and then we die. We fill up our lives with shite,
things like careers and relationships to delude ourselves that it isn’t all totally
pointless." - Irvine Welsh
"Some people are easier to love when you don't
have to be around them." - Irvine Welsh
"I'd always done a lot of sniffing glue as a
kid. I was very interested in glue, and then I went to lager and speed, and I
drifted into heroin because as a kid growing up everybody told me, 'don't smoke
marijuana, it will kill you'." - Irvine Welsh
Brooke,
ReplyDeleteTRAINSPOTTING is an interesting and apt choice off a story that has an unhappy ending, but one that "fits." So I suppose the larger question, not quite answered here is, what's the strongest determining factor in what "fits" in a story? The characters? The plot? The writing style? Is there an informal formula that helps you balance these factors, or know what cancels what out?
Best,
TT