Talking Meme: Beginnings and endings in fiction
I'm doing the January Talking Meme (still plenty of dates to choose from, so feel free to add something to the list). Today, gehayi asked about my thoughts on beginnings and endings in fiction.
Which is rather a broad category, really. What are my favorites of each? What do I prefer? What do I really hate? Can there be a platonic perfect beginning or ending? Honestly, beginnings and/or endings in fiction have had entire books written about them. What can I add to the conversation? Dunno, but I'll try, in brief.
To begin with beginnings: I'm sure, as a lot of my flist writes, that we all know beginnings are a horrible place to start a story. That blank page is intimidating. And when you start thinking about where your story really begins, it can start to do your mind in. All stories, after all, begin with the Big Bang. Some might even start before, if such a thing ever existed.
I suppose that's why a lot of stories actually begin in media res. Get at least some of the important characters on the table, stir up some chaos, and chronicle what happens. Later, you can build in background. Sometimes, you don't even know what the beginning is until you've written for a bit. TV capitalizes on this. Rarely does a TV show show the main characters growing up in linear fashion, save, of course, for soaps. Instead, the first episode introduces them, and you get their backgrounds in bits and pieces over the course of the show. Sometimes, this requires a bit of retcon.
Fanfic has the virtue of having important background built in. Thus, you can start a story at a certain place in canon and not have to worry about going over what's come before. You can still begin in media res, of course; after all, the adventure you're chronicling isn't in canon. Start in the middle, go back to the beginning, skip ahead again. I've done it a number of times.
Endings are another tricky spot. I personally write until the story stops telling itself. It's mostly been an effective strategy for me. Only occasionally has a beta sent it back with a note that it needs a real ending, and generally, when I read it over, they're right.
What endings don't I like? I hate it when the ending is at odds with the rest of the story. I also hate gratuitous angst. Shoot the Shaggy Dog endings particularly bug me, because I don't get why someone would want to write them. That said, if the story needs an ending like that, it'll work better than a deus-ex-machina ass-pull. But I try to avoid Lars von Trier-type stories if I can.
To expand on the above: I'm not a huge fan of nebulous, ambiguous endings, but if the story demands one, I'll go with it. Angel, for instance. They end in battle, and none of us knows if the remaining members of the Fang Gang will come out. But that's kind of the series in a nutshell. It worked. Similarly, the ending of Inception worked for me because it was in keeping with the tone of the film as a whole. That uncertainty of where dreams leave off and reality begins was a major theme.
On the opposite side, the book Confessions of a Shopaholic made me want to throw the book across the room. For the whole book, the protagonist had behaved in a stupid, immature, irresponsible way. She did all of one good thing, and suddenly, a dream job with plenty of money and a dreamboat boyfriend just dropped into her lap. She never had to face the consequences of her bad choices. She never showed any evidence that she learned from them. There was no character arc. Just an easy way out of the mess she'd spent the entire book getting herself into. Terrible ending, and it made a terrible book all the worse.
In other words, be true to the story and respect your characters enough to let them suffer consequences.
Which is rather a broad category, really. What are my favorites of each? What do I prefer? What do I really hate? Can there be a platonic perfect beginning or ending? Honestly, beginnings and/or endings in fiction have had entire books written about them. What can I add to the conversation? Dunno, but I'll try, in brief.
To begin with beginnings: I'm sure, as a lot of my flist writes, that we all know beginnings are a horrible place to start a story. That blank page is intimidating. And when you start thinking about where your story really begins, it can start to do your mind in. All stories, after all, begin with the Big Bang. Some might even start before, if such a thing ever existed.
I suppose that's why a lot of stories actually begin in media res. Get at least some of the important characters on the table, stir up some chaos, and chronicle what happens. Later, you can build in background. Sometimes, you don't even know what the beginning is until you've written for a bit. TV capitalizes on this. Rarely does a TV show show the main characters growing up in linear fashion, save, of course, for soaps. Instead, the first episode introduces them, and you get their backgrounds in bits and pieces over the course of the show. Sometimes, this requires a bit of retcon.
Fanfic has the virtue of having important background built in. Thus, you can start a story at a certain place in canon and not have to worry about going over what's come before. You can still begin in media res, of course; after all, the adventure you're chronicling isn't in canon. Start in the middle, go back to the beginning, skip ahead again. I've done it a number of times.
Endings are another tricky spot. I personally write until the story stops telling itself. It's mostly been an effective strategy for me. Only occasionally has a beta sent it back with a note that it needs a real ending, and generally, when I read it over, they're right.
What endings don't I like? I hate it when the ending is at odds with the rest of the story. I also hate gratuitous angst. Shoot the Shaggy Dog endings particularly bug me, because I don't get why someone would want to write them. That said, if the story needs an ending like that, it'll work better than a deus-ex-machina ass-pull. But I try to avoid Lars von Trier-type stories if I can.
To expand on the above: I'm not a huge fan of nebulous, ambiguous endings, but if the story demands one, I'll go with it. Angel, for instance. They end in battle, and none of us knows if the remaining members of the Fang Gang will come out. But that's kind of the series in a nutshell. It worked. Similarly, the ending of Inception worked for me because it was in keeping with the tone of the film as a whole. That uncertainty of where dreams leave off and reality begins was a major theme.
On the opposite side, the book Confessions of a Shopaholic made me want to throw the book across the room. For the whole book, the protagonist had behaved in a stupid, immature, irresponsible way. She did all of one good thing, and suddenly, a dream job with plenty of money and a dreamboat boyfriend just dropped into her lap. She never had to face the consequences of her bad choices. She never showed any evidence that she learned from them. There was no character arc. Just an easy way out of the mess she'd spent the entire book getting herself into. Terrible ending, and it made a terrible book all the worse.
In other words, be true to the story and respect your characters enough to let them suffer consequences.