Epilogues in Tragedies

NicoleMD · May 2, 2007

*My very first thread!*

So I’m thinking of making the last chapter of my novel an epilogue instead. The story is a tragedy, ending in my MC losing his love due to his own flaws, and taking the express train from riches to rags.

My epilogue would be set three years later, where my MC still has a lot of his same flaws, and is living a destitute life, but is verging on some self-realizations and dealing with the loose ends in his life. It ends with him crossing paths with his love again, and they decide to go have dinner…so kind of an up beat, there-might-be-some-hope-for-him-yet kind of deal.

What are your opinions of epilogues, especially in a tragedy? Annoying, satisfying? I’m assuming they’re more likely to be read than prologues. Maybe slightly?

Thanks!

Nicole

herdon · May 2, 2007

Honestly, I'd be skeptical. I'm not saying it couldn't be well done, but I'd tend to think if the protagonist is supposed to learn from their mistakes they should learn from them within the story, and if they are supposed to fall from their mistakes they should be left on the ground.

Kristin Landon · May 2, 2007

I agree with Havlen. If there's still story left to be told in an epilogue, it should have been told in the story. If the epilogue doesn't affect the story, it shouldn't exist. I'd be worried that after a strong tragic ending, the note of hope would feel tacked on.

If you're going to be cruel to your characters, I think you should mean it and stick to it.

If you need the potentially redemptive ending for the story to be complete in your eyes, then it isn't really a tragedy—just a hard-luck story. Which can work perfectly well.

NicoleMD · May 2, 2007

Interesting...hard luck, huh? I'll have to run my mind around that for a bit.

My MC does learn from his mistakes, briefly, then through a series of bad luck and villainry, he'd forced to make hard choices and sacrifices his happiness.

I guess one of the main reasons I'm thinking about putting it in an epilogue is that the story itself spans about six months, while this last part has a three year break, which is necessary for three separate story lines to gestate: a pregnancy, development and production of an invention, and the maturing of one of the characters.

Nicole

Kristin Landon · May 2, 2007

I'm sure you could find a way to make it flow anyway, if that's what seems best to you.

As a reader, I do sometimes appreciate epilogues if the characters are interesting and I want to know "where they ended up." But my instinct as a writer is that an epilogue should not include character development.

Kate Thornton · May 2, 2007

I always like those "where are they now" epilogues:

"Jonesy left New York, won the Wyoming State Lottery and got the sex change he so desperately craved, but is still looking for love in Cheyenne.

Cara discovered romance on a pig farm in Wales and found her voice after all.

And Little Betsey found that good writing *didn't* trump all when she sold her first nude pictures to the Boyington Brothers. But that's another story..."

job · May 2, 2007

The end of a work is not just --
'I have conveyed all the necessary information,'
or even --
'I have finished telling the story.'

At the end of the work
an emotional resolution hits the reader
in profound and perfect fulfillment.

Think of the last note of Madame Butterfly.

The symphony hall is silent.
Everyone takes that breath they've been holding,
and nobody has come back enough to clap.

Do not, now, send out a dwarf on a unicycle with a pennywhistle for three minutes of 'Brian O'Lin',
however tempting it is to believe a chorus of 'Brian O'Lin' adds to understanding the story.

If you need the pennywhistle,
you haven't left the reader emotionally drained/uplifted/appalled/exhaulted
with your proper ending,
have you?

Oliveman · May 2, 2007

Besides the idea of just leaving out the epilogue and leaving him being hopeless, add irony. Before I explain that, let me say that the idea is to set up the double ending you're discussing for an epilogue, but contain that within the end of the story, constructing his character in a way that allows readers to see that there is a ray of light of some sort. By an ironic ending I mean that it is both positive and negative. Though it ends on strongly on the negative, the hope presented through the contradictions in the MC allows for a small positive ending in addition to the overwhelming negative. If it is possible for your epilogue to exist, construct the story so that it is a strong conclusion that he will end up at the condition in the epilogue, but without having it. It may be a good idea to write the epilogue anyway and use it for notes, as it will be your aim for the positive side of the negative, but ironic, ending. Through foreshadowing constructed as a result of his character, that is, his reactions throughout the story, his thoughts, and his unconscious desires, you can pull this off naturally without having to add the epilogue on at the end at all: It will already be there in the minds of the reader.

Good luck in working this out! Hope I helped

rugcat · May 2, 2007

Epilogues are like everything else in writing. Some are great, some are pointless. Some work, some don't. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with writing one.

Personally, I rather like them. (Especially Kate Thornton's example.)

JoNightshade · May 2, 2007

Personally, I like epilogues. Tragedies that just END with everyone dead (or whatever) always annoy me. I always think, "But the story can't just end there." Like, I always wonder what Roxanne did after Cyrano died. (Sorry if I spoiled that for anyone!) Does she stay at the nunnery forever, or does his death cause her to realize that life is too precious to be squandered? Of course I don't think Cyrano de Bergerac should have an epilogue; Roxanne is not the main character. But say it had ended with Roxanne dying... well, then I would want to know what Cyrano did afterward. I wouldn't want it to end with "Roxanne died and Cyrano cried. The end." That just doesn't feel like the character development has been brought full circle, as far as I'm concerned.

And I don't think you need to label your work "tragedy" or "comedy." There's plenty of room in between those two extremes and only the Greeks felt compelled to categorize things as one or the other.

NicoleMD · May 2, 2007

Thanks a bunch everyone. That helped a lot actually. I guess I just need to write it up. Then I can figure out if it's a comic-tragedy or a tragic-comedy. Or a tragic-comic-tragedy, or whatever. I was trying to explain the ending to someone once, and I was nearly in tears. I don't know what that was all about. :Shrug:

thepainpasses · May 8, 2007

I wouldn't disagree with an epilogue, but I don't like the idea of ending the tragedy with a ray of hope. It's a tragedy. Allow the character to hit rock bottom and stay there. If anything, he can come to the self-realizations, but he shouldn't be shown working on them. Let him come to terms with what happened, but let his later rendezvous with his love happen only in the reader's mind. Let them want for a reconciliation just because of how you're written that they imagine it themselves.

NicoleMD · May 9, 2007

thepainpasses said:
I wouldn't disagree with an epilogue, but I don't like the idea of ending the tragedy with a ray of hope. It's a tragedy. Allow the character to hit rock bottom and stay there. If anything, he can come to the self-realizations, but he shouldn't be shown working on them. Let him come to terms with what happened, but let his later rendezvous with his love happen only in the reader's mind. Let them want for a reconciliation just because of how you're written that they imagine it themselves.

Hmmm... I like this.

Letting the chance of love happen in the reader's mind...so he sees his love coming down the street. He can play around in his mind whether he should reach out or just fade into the woodwork, then maybe show his hand twitching, and end the scene/epilogue/novel there.

Does that feel satisfying?

Nicole

Oliveman · May 9, 2007

Personally I don't think it's annoying when everyone dies if it's appropriate for a tradgedy. Remember, how you present the ending should be dependant on the themes and beliefs that run as an undercurrent to your story, controlling who the characters are and thus the choices they make. I'd say the best tradgedies leave you absolutely devestated, but in that devestation, fulfilled because of the incredible, great, and terrible experience, and the revelations coming from it, and the questions provoked. There is, after all, a certain finality to everyone dying in the end, when appropriate. It is representative of all the smaller forces expanding over the course of the story then bringing you to the absolute extreme of the reality of the story, and thus the reality of your own existence.

eliflauta · May 18, 2007

A really fun (and by fun I mean horrifically horrible) type of tragic ending is that everybody dies except for the protagonist. Or everyone except the antagonist. Actually, the latter could be a happy ending in the right context (i.e. the protagonist is evil and the antagonist is the kind soul who just wants the evil guy, aka the protagonist, to go away or die or something, so then if the bad guy dies, flowers and sunshine can smother the earth with fragrant love and warmth). Wow, I got off topic rather quickly there. Anyway, it entirely depends on how macabre you want it to be, or if you just want some heart wrenching(and if you need advice for "heart-wrenching" endings, sorry, I'm not very good with those).

CheshireCat · May 18, 2007

I think if you're going to market anything either to an agent or a publisher and call it "a tragedy" you're going to have a hard, hard sell. Shakespeare wrote tragedies; the rest of us mostly just write either literary or genre/commercial fiction.

I'm just saying.

BardSkye · May 18, 2007

Two of my favourite books are tragedies. Both have epilogues. Both are more satisfying with the epilogues.

My 2 cents worth.

maestrowork · May 18, 2007

Well, my feeling is let the story end where it should. To me, an epilogue like "what happens to him three years later" is just dragging it on and it doesn't add anything to the main story. If you add that epilogue with an open-ended ending, then it's really not a tragedy anymore. You've changed the story to end on a hopeful note. To me, you either make that your real ending, or scrap it altogether. Must make up your mind how your story is going to end.

Chris Grey · May 18, 2007

If you've seen 28 Weeks Later, the very very last bit of it is an epilogue. It's not so much "hey here's more of the story" as it is "in case you were wondering." See also Jurassic Park with their "nuke the site from orbit (it's the only way to be sure)" epilogue (it's been a long time so I might be confusing this with something else), or Pirates of the Caribbean with the monkey. They're extra scenes that don't belong in the story, and the reader can (and in many cases will) not read it and not be missing anything.

So, if you feel the timeskip is part of your story, then work it in. In this case, it kinda is.

scarletpeaches · May 18, 2007

Kate Thornton said:
I always like those "where are they now" epilogues...

Me too. I think they're fun.

But on topic, perhaps you could make your epilogue the first chapter of a sequel?

Scrawler · May 18, 2007

I recently finished a novel that ended abruptly with one of those lame "symbolic-incomprehensible" scenes. Then the author devoted 10 pages to a "whatever happened to..." epilogue on all the characters. I'd would have preferred better character development to know the characters well enough to have an idea of what happened after The End. I don't mind wondering and letting their fate linger in my imagination.

Oliveman · May 18, 2007

Yes, I usually skip epilogues for that reason (unless they're short) as I usually know what everyone's probably doing after the conclusion. If it's presented creatively and in a concise manner, however, I do read it. If I couldn't know their fates without the epilogue... well, I probably never finished the book.

NicoleMD · May 18, 2007

CheshireCat said:
I think if you're going to market anything either to an agent or a publisher and call it "a tragedy" you're going to have a hard, hard sell. Shakespeare wrote tragedies; the rest of us mostly just write either literary or genre/commercial fiction.

I'm just saying.

I'd market it as Science Fiction. It just happens to have a tragic end (perhaps).

Scrawler said:
I recently finished a novel that ended abruptly with one of those lame "symbolic-incomprehensible" scenes. Then the author devoted 10 pages to a "whatever happened to..." epilogue on all the characters. I'd would have preferred better character development to know the characters well enough to have an idea of what happened after The End. I don't mind wondering and letting their fate linger in my imagination.

Oliveman said:
Yes, I usually skip epilogues for that reason (unless they're short) as I usually know what everyone's probably doing after the conclusion. If it's presented creatively and in a concise manner, however, I do read it. If I couldn't know their fates without the epilogue... well, I probably never finished the book.

Both of these give me something to think about. I don't know if I've ever wondered about what happens to characters after the story ended, unless it was an obviously open-ending. I never wonder what's going to happen while I'm reading either. I guess I sort of just read and reflect. Hmmmm...

Epilogues in Tragedies

NicoleMD

Onomatopotamus

herdon

What's up?

Kristin Landon

NicoleMD

Onomatopotamus

Kristin Landon

Kate Thornton

Still Happy to be Here. Or Anywhere

job

In the end, it's just you and the manuscript

Oliveman

rugcat

Lost in the Fog

JoNightshade

has finally arrived

NicoleMD

Onomatopotamus

thepainpasses

NicoleMD

Onomatopotamus

Oliveman

eliflauta

CheshireCat

Mostly purring. Mostly.

BardSkye

Barbershoppin' Harmony Whore

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

Chris Grey

Vagrant Story

scarletpeaches

Scrawler

Bored fanatic

Oliveman

NicoleMD

Onomatopotamus