The ends! (let's talk about the ends of stories)

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MidnightMuse

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I hate a good cry. There ARE no good cries! I'll toss a book and avoid that author again if they pull one of those.
 

rhymegirl

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I like a surprise ending. You didn't see it coming.
 

PeeDee

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His Thunderous Longboat

Too Wicked to Go To The Baths

Trojan Stallion


All popular Aristotle novels. Great stuff.
 

Azraelsbane

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I hate a good cry. There ARE no good cries! I'll toss a book and avoid that author again if they pull one of those.

I hate and love it when a book makes me cry. It means I really believe in the characters. I'm not a fan of making the reader cry at every turn, but if I cried while writing it, some people damn well better bring out the hankies while reading it. Killing a character is one of the hardest things to do (for me at least), and when an author powers ahead with such a thing for the good of the story, I have to respect that.

Then again, I am not a fan of pointless deaths. Death needs a reason, and for me, saving the world from evil just doesn't cut it. No one is that selfless, at least no one I'm interested in reading about anymore. I've had my fill of "I'm destined to save man/elf/dwarf/mousekind" heroes.
 

huxley

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ok here are some more endings that I observed.


1. The hidden wound scenario : mc saves someone and in the process he is wounded but nobody notices but him and just when the climax is over and they are safe, he bleeds to death and dies.

examples of this is : blood diamon, and children of men. (movies)


2. The save the day oject, (scenario): During a battle between the protaganist and antagonist, the mc useally falls down and glances over and sees the "object that will save the day" in reaching distance or just out of reach. He picks out the object and with it defeats the bad guy. (maybe the object is the bad guys weakness, like water or fire, or just a plain gun)

Exemples of this is : the drunken master ( picks up a fuel and spits fire)

roger rabit movie ( uses a punch gun to defeat the bad guy)

Along came a spider (use a knife , i think, to kill the bad guy. )


Thanks you guys for playing along, I would love to hear some more thoughts about the END of stories. Different scenarios, ect...
 

maestrowork

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A side note... if anyone's gonna list examples, please put up a SPOILER warning.



1. The hidden wound scenario : mc saves someone and in the process he is wounded but nobody notices but him and just when the climax is over and they are safe, he bleeds to death and dies.

examples of this is : ..... (movies)
 

Jack Nog

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I write horror so...

The evil monster is vanquished...

A nice little paragraph at the end that says that maybe, just maybe the threat isn't gone.
 

takkunelwood

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I like ending on a key line, something kind of sentimental maybe. If I'm not planning the book as part of a series/pair, then I like to leave it open to the possibility of more. I don't want to have an ending that sets it up for a sequel, only to disappoint readers if there isn't one.
 

Zelenka

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The only type of ending that really does make me throw a book down is when the author just pulls some magical or previously un-established thing out of nowhere and it saves the day, then spends the last chapter making up some excuse for why it was there, even though we've never heard of it or the possibility of it for the other thirty chapters of the book.
 

seun

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I write horror so...

The evil monster is vanquished...

A nice little paragraph at the end that says that maybe, just maybe the threat isn't gone.

As much as I love horror, I'm so bored of the open ending in fiction and films that quite obviously sets up the sequel.
 

KTC

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Someone told me yesterday that they loved the soft denouement at the end of my novel. I just love soft denouements that make you sigh at the end after the roller coaster, so it was the best thing she could have said. Who else likes this kind of ending?
 
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