Why are people writing pointless epilogues to their books?

I think the simple answer is here: Because the author/editor didn't think they were pointless.


Some stories, many readers like to know how things turned out years later. Maybe you aren't one of them, but that doesn't make the epilogue pointless for everyone else.

IdiotsRUs said:

I think the simple answer is here: Because the author/editor didn't think they were pointless.


Some stories, many readers like to know how things turned out years later. Maybe you aren't one of them, but that doesn't make the epilogue pointless for everyone else.

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Agreed. That's why the book Scarlett exists. I was never interested enough to read it, but many are.

It sounds like you'd be happier if you closed the book when you got to the epilogue.

You can't stop an author from writing them and you can't make the author write one that isn't pointless to you, so perhaps avoiding them would improve your enjoyment of the book.

I agree with Josh here.

Most of the time, it makes so much more sense to not write an epilogue. It leaves the door open for fanworks which sustain interest long after the original series has ended. It encourages reader discussion, debate, and theorycrafting. It's better for readers in almost every way. We think we want the definitive HEA ending with (insert favorite 'ship here), but what really keeps us going is getting to imagine the future for ourselves.

An epilogue can be worthwhile in certain cases--e.g., it contains a twist or hints at a future development that couldn't be done in the body of the story, or it hammers home some theme or artistic statement that could not be done otherwise, or whatever.

Which, you could argue, is what Suzanne Collins was doing: trying to show hope and faith in humanity surviving some really awful shit. But did we really need her to do that? Why not let us decide whether the future is a hopeful or bleak one?

If the epilogue was for the sake of the author's personal closure, they could just write it to get it out of their system and then not include it.

I don't think the Mockingjay epilogue improved the book or the series as a whole. I pretty much agree with Josh's assessment--it cut off wondering about the characters' futures and drawing our own conclusions about What It All Means for these characters. We're told, pretty bluntly and artlessly, what we are supposed to think about what it means. That's not good writing.

Whether the author/editor didn't think it was pointless doesn't change the fact that it doesn't improve the story and actually detracts from it in a lot of ways.

I think the underlying point is: trust the readers. Don't try to pull an Aesop at the end. Art is not a sermon. We derive our own meanings from it, and to impinge on that often results in cheapening the art.

I don't mind most of them. I liked the Hunger Games one, understood it; she needed to resolve the relationship after making it a central conflict for three books.

And changing my ms. for potential fanfic writers is nowhere on my list of writing goals, nor is it, I would guess, on the lists of goals of the published writers I admire.

I like epilogues.

It always gives me a nice sense of closure with the relationships I made with the characters. Kind of like, "ok, I'll never see you again, but I know where you're going, and I know you're gonna be all right." Or at the very least, it's a great way to tie up loose ends or prepare the reader for the sequel.

leahzero said:

Most of the time, it makes so much more sense to not write an epilogue. It leaves the door open for fanworks which sustain interest long after the original series has ended.

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Er, what? We're writing/structuring our books so that people can write fanfiction easier?

Plenty of books have a concrete resolution AND a solid fan fic community (LOTR springs to mind - more resolution than you can shake a stick it, and lots of fan fic too) And resolution there hasn't sopped fans discussing and rehashing points from all over, has it?


What causes an epilogue to be useful/good is fairly personal. I've used them more than once, and not in the way you describe either, and they weren't pointless. They very much had a point - just maybe not the point you want.

I'll agree that not every story needs them, but just because you or I don't like the way one was handled doesn't make it 'pointless'. It makes it subjective however.

Just chalk it up to 'not my cup of tea' and move on, because I doubt very much whether any author is writing a book just to fit my tastes - they are writing the book they want, and which they think will appeal to the audience (or at least the majority of them)

It really is just a personal taste thing

Not reading an epilogue to a popular book like HP isn't going to prevent you hearing about everything that's in it, ad nauseam. Unless you become a hermit, maybe?

I disagree Josh. I admit a lot of times epilogues are not necessary but I think the ones in Deathly Hallows and Mockingjay played an important part.

The first time I read the Potter epilogue, I didn't like it at all. It read like mediocre fanfiction and like a quick and easy way for Rowling to say, "I'm not writing more Potter so stop asking!". Over time however, I've come to realize that it serves a more interesting purpose. First, she puts a proper close on Harry's story. We know who he becomes, he's settled, he's a family man etc. The same for his friends and even rival. Without that, the Potter story would have continued on forever in people's imagination, we'd never have really known how the characters we'd all grown up with would have coped with all the death and trauma of their childhoods. Now, as much as it is fun to speculate and write fanfiction, with a series like HP that has reached so many people, I don't think it would have been a good idea not to achieve complete closure. However, she does something else to give the fans that space to play: the children. The epilogue ends by giving us a new hero and a new rival whose adventures to play with but without the emotional attachment we have towards his pop so if we never really know, it doesn't really matter.

As for Mockingjay, I was also not too thrilled on first reading but now I think it's a good thing. It suits the series to know that it wasn't all "and they rode off into the sunset and all was good" for our favourite couple. It was hard, there was more fear, more doubt, and the world wasn't suddenly perfect with good people leading etc. The world was still screwed up but our heroes could find their place in it eventually. You know that if the author hadn't stated it so, most people would have just said "oh and they got married and had a baby a year after and Katniss became president eventually..." which is not the point the books were trying to make.

I think it's a tricky thing to do because we're so used to series and sequels and the like now that we instinctively dislike anything that finished the story off with a bow. I think we all, at least deep down, want to keep hoping that maybe the author will return to the story someday and we'll get to travel with their characters again. There's a sense of grief when you know you've reached the end and that that's that. Frodo sails off into the west never to come back.

I'll say this about the Harry Potter epilogue: I think the only reason it was done was to show that Harry had forgiven, and even accepted, Snape. That's it. No other useful information that couldn't be gleaned from reading the story was presented. So that in and of itself is the justification for the Harry Potter epilogue.

As for Mockingjay, I think she just wanted an excuse to write her last line.

I think that sometimes an epilogue is part of the story because it can show the long-term effects of the choices the characters made. And those consequences may be integral to the author's point.

leahzero said:

Whether the author/editor didn't think it was pointless doesn't change the fact that it doesn't improve the story and actually detracts from it in a lot of ways.

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In your opinion, of course.

Personally, I liked the epilogue in Mockingjay, and it gave me a sense of closure to the trilogy. I have other issues with that book that I won't go into here, but I appreciated the look into the future, and I do not think it detracted from the story in any way.

Readers won't always agree on what makes a book good or bad, and we'll always wonder "why did the author do this?" Well, they did it because they thought it was the best possible way to tell the story they were telling. Just like authors who use prologues, or flashbacks, or omniscient POV, or any number of things that get debated back and forth.

Maybe I don't read enough books with epilogues, but I've yet to read one that I've felt was extraneous, or somehow detracted from the rest of the book.

I haven't read book #3 of the Hunger Games series yet....not sure if I will.... so I haven't seen the epilog, but sometimes I think they're okay... especially for closure once the series is over. You've taken a long journey together, perhaps more than happily ever after is good.

I like them in movies..... I think of Animal House when they showed what became of the characters.... hilarious!

I'm not sure they're always pointless, but if they become overused (especially in single volume novels, then it may become vapid and trite.)

Rowling specifically wanted to close the door on fanwork.

Almost all of my novels have epilogues. I like 'em.

I write romance, and for me, there's more to a real romance than finally getting the characters together. I want to show that the relationship is stable and has the power to last. But after the main conflict of the book is resolved, there's not really much plot to justify covering months of the characters lives as they settle in together. So I write an epilogue, a chunk of time in the future, to show that they're still together, and THIS is the kind of couple they are.

But maybe that would seem pointless to someone who was following the main conflict of the story rather than the relationship as a whole?

veinglory said:

Rowling specifically wanted to close the door on fanwork.

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Hard to close the door on fanwork when it has already crushed the house.

jjdebenedictis said:

Hard to close the door on fanwork when it has already crushed the house.

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I don't think she is suffering too much by the look of her Edinburgh abode.

If the fanwork crushes the house. It's all right. She can just move to the east wing.

I don't mind epilogues, but I prefer if they serve a purpose. If they're only there to show you what things are like 10 years down the road, when you could have easily guessed, then they're pointless. But if they help wrap up the story, or if they show you the repercussions of the characters' actions, then they're useful.

One of my novels has an epilogue, the other does not. For at time, I removed the epilogue from the first novel and let it end with the happily-ever-after. But after talking with several beta-readers and having a long discussion here at AW, I decided to put the epilogue back in. The reason is, it serves a purpose. It wraps up a minor loose end, but it's main purpose is to carry on the theme of the novel, which is that all decisions have consequences. When the 21-year-old heroine chooses to marry a man who's in his early 50s, she has to face the fact that he's going to die of old age while she's still middle-aged and healthy. The epilogue shows you his death, but it also shows you that he had a family (after being alone for so long) and that he got the happiness and peace he longed for through the whole novel. It ends the story on a bittersweet note, but it makes it more realistic (I feel) than if I'd ended it with a storybook happily-ever-after.

If it bothers you, just don't read them.

jaksen said:

If it bothers you, just don't read them.

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And especially don't read the epilogue in Atonement.

Because that is one epilogue that changed the face of the whole book - the epilogue was..the point of the book really. Even if it did make me swear and cry and call Ian McEwan a lot of names. Without it, the book wouldn't have had half the impact. I want to write me one of those one day.