There’s an interesting discussion going on over at The Five Randoms on book endings.

Some of my (quite random) thoughts, reposted here:

I do think good endings are very important — a good beginning will make me keep reading a book, but a bad ending will definitely spoil my experience of an otherwise good book, like a terrible dessert at the end of a delicious dinner.

I am a sap so I do enjoy a good, well-deserved happy ending. But I don’t need one to be satisfied by a book – I loved the ending of THE TIME-TRAVELER’S WIFE (it made me cry, one of only three books to do so that don’t feature sad things happening to dogs). I particularly love it when the main character doesn’t get exactly what she/he started the book wanting, but realizes that what they do end up with is better, even if it’s bittersweet.

There’s also the issue of unresolved plot threads, whether in a series, or not. I know some folks have been less than thrilled with the ending to THE HUNGER GAMES due to certain aspects of the story being unresolved, but I actually quite liked it. I felt the issues I cared most about were resolved, and the other issues were left in a state that felt fair to me, given the actions and nature of the main character. But as in much about writing, it really does vary from book to book and reader to reader.

One type of ending that I encounter regularly in my favorite genre (fantasy) that I think is often mishandled is “the big magical shebang” where some giant spell goes off, or some portal opens, or some otherwise large-scale magical event occurs and everything gets resolved against a fantastical lightshow backdrop. These can be well-done (and I must admit I have one of these at the end of my second book) but a lot of the time I feel sort of like the author got too overwhelmed and just decided to throw in a bunch of FX to distract the reader from the actual plot resolution.

I am a sucker for books where the ending somehow reflects or resonates with the beginning, either physically (characters return to the same location) or thematically (the questions/issues posed in the opening paragraph) or both. So that you could hold up the first paragraph, and the last paragraph, and sort of see the entire book captured there. This is something I aim for in my own books.

And lastly, one thing that will make me want to throw a book across the room is when a character is killed off at the end and I feel like it’s only being done because the author wants to show the reader that “things are serious” (this rule applies to TV and movies too, Joss Whedon). I can understand that desire, but it generally just feels like cheating to me.

What about you guys? How do you feel about endings? What do you look for, and what turns you off? What are some of your favorite endings?

Tags: writing