Each book needs a good beginning and a good ending. People get pissed off when you don't close things off properly at the end.
I think the best endings bring you back in rather than close things off with absolute finality. I'm not saying they necessarily have to be ambiguous, but we don't always need to know what happens when everyone wakes up tomorrow morning.
I started thinking about the endings of novels not because I think endings are so important, but because I think they're actually not as important as they're sometimes given credit for.
A brief short story may require only a few paragraphs after the climax. On the other hand, in his massive novel 'The World According to Garp,' John Irving's denouement consisted of 10 separate sections, each devoted to an individual character's fate and each almost a story in itself.
Yeah, I don't necessarily like endings that contrive an artificial moment of completion.
And in stories, endings matter.
I always love writing the third book in a series because you get to tie up all the threads that you put out in the first two books. You finally let people know what really happens and reveal all the secrets and bring certain characters together.
'Lost' is driving toward an ending, and that ending is: Are these people getting off this island? What is the nature of this island? What is going to happen to them? What is their ultimate fate? What is their ultimate destiny? Those questions need to get answered.
I can't believe we're in the middle of the fifth season, and if this is all there is, my God, it went fast.
You don't have to resolve every problem of the book at the end, but you do have to resolve some.
There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.
You know not every book has to have a happy ending, but it has to have a satisfying ending.
I want to feel that my characters evolved into a place that they deserved, that was sometimes unexpected, but where I would feel satiated that logically they have come to a conclusion that makes me feel satisfied.
With both novels and short stories, I think a lot in terms of character arcs, when it comes to endings.
In writing for movies, you obviously want to resolve things and have a sense of completion at the end - in an ideal way.
Most action is based on redemption and revenge, and that's a formula. Moby Dick was formula. It's how you get to the conclusion that makes it interesting.
I often find that writers who disavow the importance of an ending are just not very good at endings.
While most episodes have a beginning, middle, and an ending, finales on 'Game of Thrones' are just one ending after another after another, as each of the storylines needs to wrapped up or at least attended to in some way.
