What's your favorite kind of ending?

[WickedChaos]

Which kinds of endings do you find the best? I personally find an ending where the main character has to make a significant sacrifice to put everything back, but even then it's not perfect. Kind of a bitter sweet type I s'pose. Doing all of this just to bring back the old imperfect world, rather than have it make a difference and enhance life somehow.

Ah, I think I might be getting a little confusing. Anyways, what about you guys? Which kind of endings do you find most interesting/captivating?

 

[Virtual_Space]

I like a surprise ending myself, where something completely new and unexpected happens right on the last page that completely changes your views on the story.

 

[RyFrye]

I like a surprise ending myself, where something completely new and unexpected happens right on the last page that completely changes your views on the story.

..and can I add, that it makes you wishing there was more to come?

 

[Talysia]

I like the kind of endings that leave you satisfied with the story itself. Surprise endings are good, too, and even "happily ever afters" can be all right if they're done properly, but most of all, I like endings that make you feel like you've been on the journey with your characters.

 

[Mouse]

I kinda like tragic endings. The ones where you close the book and stare into space for a few moments before saying, "Bloody Hell!"

 

[The Pelagic Argosy]

1. It should be something I can't guess, and yet...

2. It should seem inevitable.

A tall order. Endings are hard. Maybe this is Robert Jordan's problem.

 

[j d worthington]

I'm inclined to agree with The Pelagic Argosy here, though I think that "tragic" endings are often the most genuine (too often "happy" or "surprise" endings require warping of the weft to make things come out that way, and a story should be true to itself to be of any real worth), but whatever ending the story leads logically (that is, with internal consistency) to works is the best. And you can have surprise endings that way (see, for instance, A. E. van Vogt's The Weapon Shops of Isher, or James Blish's A Case of Conscience, for example), or even happy endings (not everything in life is tragic); but it needs to be inherent in the logic of the story itself.

 

[Sapheron]

Absolutely unexpected surprise, that when you think about it was bound to happen, but you didn't realise until afterwards. So same as the two above me really.

 

[DragonRhapsody]

I like the ones that warp your mind, and totally make you nonfunctional for an hour or two. The ones that really really tease you and then twist it around and make you wonder why that all had to happen, and yet you are in awe that it did. And the ones that are tragic but still end fittingly. I don't like tragic for no reason - otherwise I get sad!

But. I am also a romantic at heart, and I do appreciate a great happy ending, too, but only in really lovey-dovey books that are all hot-air and empty words. The really good books make you wonder what you just read ^___^

 

[WriterDoug]

Any book that makes me grin like a fool after I am finished reading the last page has arguably done the trick. This could occur for a number of reasons:

1.) the ending is so surprising (but entirely plausible) that I did not see it coming.
2.) the stakes have become so high by the end, that everything just explodes in chaos. who's left alive? who's dead? oh, i cannot even think right now!
3.) any book that ends exactly as I wish it to, becuase it is the only truly perfect ending that I have been imagining from the get-go.

I am toying with a MASSIVE fantasy series that I probably will not start writing for at least another five years. I want to just brew ideas, but I am already convinced I do not want the type of ending that neatly ties everything up and explains the whole lot of confusion, (and this completely contrasts how I wanted to end another fantasy series that I never even got knee-deep into.) I just want it to end in a great ball of fire (not literally) and have a few pages following that chaotic moment, then the series shall just end there. You can use your imagination and figure out the rest.

cheers,
WD

 

[stringingwords]

A tall order. Endings are hard. Maybe this is Robert Jordan's problem.

*gigglesnort* That's a distinct possibility!

The novel I'm prepping is meant to be one of a series (not that long, I promise) so I plan on having two strands of conflict - one that gets solved and one that doesn't.

For one-shots, I think it's nice to have some resolution - just as not as it's not all neatly wrapped with a bow!