Sense of an ending
In my writing group we have a running joke that no matter what or whose piece I'm critiquing, my advice will always be to chop the last paragraph/ scene/ chapter/ sentence.
There is a tendency, often, to wax on for too long. Or, worse, to be anxious that the reader will not get it, will fail to properly understand the story. And then the writer, in a moment of weakness, crams a horrible summary at the end to explain the whole thing. No. Just erase all that stuff. The real ending is three sentences up. British author Tessa Hadley agrees: "If ever you can take off the last paragraph and it still works then you didn't need that last paragraph.”
It’s instructive to hear authors speak about endings which, in my experience, are either instinctive and automatic or impossible roadblocks that stall everything.
A while back, Hadley was interviewed by BBC Radio 4's James Naughtie about three stories in her collection Married Love. What interested me most - but wasn't discussed much - were her thoughts on endings. To summarize, she says: stories must take a turn and that you should leave something left over, a note of yearning at the end.
To me this means you begin with the characters at a certain point, then in the course of the story their circumstances change, and there is a turn so that they are left somewhere else. Or the reader begins at a point - perhaps with an assumption - and by the end the turn takes place in the reader's mind. The reader comes to a realization or their assumptions are proven wrong.
“...the ending of a short story spins and looks back over the short story and so it’s more retrospective in a way.”
— Lorrie Moore
As for the yearning….there is always that unfinished note at the end of Hadley's stories. The characters feel like they are left longing or the reader is. This is one of those characteristics that I love about her stories, that I want to emulate but can't because I can't even really articulate what it is that she does or how she does it.
And then here’s American short story queen Lorrie Moore talking about the difference between short stories and novels. The former ends with a backward glance while the latter looks forward.
Finally, some wisdom from author Ethan Canin who believes our job, as writers, through the course of the story, is to engage the reader so fully and deeply that emotion overwhelms intellect and the reader is carried along: "At the end of a story or novel, you do not want the reader thinking. Endings are about emotion, and logic is emotion's enemy."
