Endings

Yes, me too. I don't feel so strange now!

I never read the ending until I get to it. Same with my writing, I don't know the ending until I get there. I like to be surprised.

I'm not so much about reading ahead to the ending of a new book. However, I will reread favorite books over and over and over, so it's not a killer for me to know the ending. I still get a great deal of enjoyment when I do.

I'm also very much a plotter, so knowing the ending when I'm writing is important for me. I'm flexible about altering it, but I have to have some destination in sight or I'll flounder.

sanremoave said:

I'm not so much about reading ahead to the ending of a new book. However, I will reread favorite books over and over and over, so it's not a killer for me to know the ending. I still get a great deal of enjoyment when I do.

I'm also very much a plotter, so knowing the ending when I'm writing is important for me. I'm flexible about altering it, but I have to have some destination in sight or I'll flounder.

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Yup to all. I've had to hold the pages together with one hand so I won't try to flip ahead and peek when I'm reading an exciting book. But I also love to re-read my favorites, so knowing also isn't a killer for me.

Writing is different: I have to know there's a complete story, or I can't start.

My habit when reading a new books is to read the first and last page first then go back to the beginning and read through. No idea why though as it often leaves me mystified.

I react the same with books and films: if someone tells me the end, I won't bother to read or watch it. Why? For me, the enjoyment is following the characters to an unknown conclusion. If I know the conclusion, the journey isn't quite as exciting.

There are exceptions, of course, such as biographies or books/films based on true events. But for my fiction, I don't want to know beforehand. Ruins all suspense.

I just find that so foreign. If I knew the ending I wouldn't bother reading it. To me that's cheating.

I like to try to solve the puzzle if it's a mystery or a thriller. I like to see if I can guess how the story will end. Part of why I'm a writer is because I want to create something that keeps people guessing as to the outcome.

I always read the end when I get to it. The story is like a journey, and I can't travel through it by starting at the destination.

I'm like a lot of the others who've posted. If I know the end of a movie or piece of fiction, I won't bother reading or watching it. I like being surprised or having my guesses confirmed about what's going to happen. I don't even use walkthroughs on games because I like to figure them out. If I know how the game ends, I quit playing.

My sis reads the last chapter first. Why? Because if it doesn't end 'right', she doesn't want to waste her time and money on it! ('Right' means 'Happy Ending')

Conversely, if I start a book I will generally finish it. Even if it is not very good. I don't like to start a story and not finish. I may run in hyper skim mode to slug thru it, but I at least want to know what happens.

There's maybe 4 books I've never been able to get all the way thru. A book has to be truly, truly awful for me to throw it across the room before finishing.

I can not even fathom reading an ending before I ever start a new book. Rereading an old favorite is different, like watching a movie or the same episode of a show more than once. You're going through the experience again because you enjoyed the previous ones. But to know that _____ dies at the end and _____ and _______ live happily ever after just churns my stomach thinking about it. I hate watching a movie before reading a book, if it was based off of a book.

Which is why I still haven't watched The Da Vinci Code. Eragon was a rare example of seeing the movie first. And to be honest, had I read the books first I would have hated the movie. It has so many inconsistancies, I was bitching the whole time I was reading the book. Nothing matched up!

If a movie I've never seen is on T.V., I'll only watch it if it has JUST started. If it is more than 50% in, I'll wait until next time.

I'm with SK and a few others. My feeling is you're cheating the author by reading the ending first. S/he worked darn hard on a beginning, a middle and an end - designed to be read in that order. It would be easy to formulate an incorrect impression of the book by skimming the ending first and then perhaps deciding not to buy it. (Thus depriving one of us poor hacks of our $1.25.)

I hate knowing the end of a book or movie before I get to it. In fact, I recently watched a movie on DVD that I'd really wanted to see in the theater, because I wanted to try and forget that someone told me there was a surprise ending (didn't work, but the movie was so-so anyway). I just hate that -- no more asking co-workers what they think of movies! Strangely, the ones who read as much as I do will only say whether they recommend a book or not, without giving anything away.

I've had to cover pages with my hand to keep from jumping ahead while reading, though. I love the torture of the suspense as much as the reveal.

When I write, sometimes I know how I think it might end, but usually it's so vague as to be useless until I get close.

I could never read the ending before I got to it. They call it the "end" for a reason...

I only read the ending if, while into the book, the situation of the characters frustrates me to know end. Then I <i>must</i> know whether the characters come out all right in the end or not. (I had to do that with Order of the Phoenix, since most of the book was so glum.) Sometimes it's the only way I can get myself to finish a book.

Any book that keeps me turning pages without flipping to the end is doing a good job.

Melanie

That is a very interesting way of looking at it. To find out how they get there. Hmmm.....finger on chin.......

Southern_girl29 said:

I always read the ending of a book after I've read about two chapters into the story. I like knowing the ending, and in no way does it ruin the whole book for me. For me, the fun is getting to the ending and finding out how they wound up there.

In writing, I almost always know how I'm going to end a story when I start it. Sometimes, it changes, but more often than not, it's almost exactly how I envisioned it.

Is anyone else this way?

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I'm with Southern Girl. For me, the "figuring out how they get to the end" is more interesting than the end itself. If all we cared about were surprise endings, no one would read romances.

I don't like watching movies based on books either, but for a different reason than wm_bookworm: too many details of the story's journey (again, the "how") get lost in a movie.

wm_bookworm said:

I can not even fathom reading an ending before I ever start a new book. Rereading an old favorite is different, like watching a movie or the same episode of a show more than once. You're going through the experience again because you enjoyed the previous ones. But to know that _____ dies at the end and _____ and _______ live happily ever after just churns my stomach thinking about it. I hate watching a movie before reading a book, if it was based off of a book.

Which is why I still haven't watched The Da Vinci Code. Eragon was a rare example of seeing the movie first. And to be honest, had I read the books first I would have hated the movie. It has so many inconsistancies, I was bitching the whole time I was reading the book. Nothing matched up!

If a movie I've never seen is on T.V., I'll only watch it if it has JUST started. If it is more than 50% in, I'll wait until next time.

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We must be twins!
The movie on TV thing drives my DH nuts - he'll watch a movie at any old point, but I *need* the beginning first!

haha...hey Kate is it raining?

Yes, I need to not know how a book ends.....what I do do, however (doo doo) is I like to see how many pages a book has. So I'll go to the end, and sneak a peek at the page number and try so hard not to even glance at a single word in the meantime.

Southern_girl29 said:

I always read the ending of a book after I've read about two chapters into the story. I like knowing the ending, and in no way does it ruin the whole book for me. For me, the fun is getting to the ending and finding out how they wound up there.

In writing, I almost always know how I'm going to end a story when I start it. Sometimes, it changes, but more often than not, it's almost exactly how I envisioned it.

Is anyone else this way?

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Author Louis De Bernières gives away not just the story's overall ending, but lets readers know about the fate of many characters. From the beginning of, Birds Without Wings, he makes no secret about the ultimate death of a main character.

In the novel I'm now reading, Corelli's Mandolin, set on an occupied Greek island in WW II, he includes a vignette about the town's fat, indulgent priest who, after the occupation, becomes a skinny patriot, walking all over the island denouncing the Germans and Italians. At the conclusion he notes that had the priest lived, he might have become a saint.

You might want to take a look at some of De Bernières writing, if not for the storytelling, which I enjoy, then to see how he lets readers know about the future. One thing I noticed is that he never gives the full story. In the example above, readers only know the priest dies. In "Wings" readers don't learn how the MC dies until the moment it happens near the end of the book.

Bayou Bill