So if I was going to end this column, the best way to go
about it would be-
Oh, calm down. Don't get your hopes up, I'm not going anywhere.
However, since you brought it up, I might as well run with
it, as it gives me something to talk about. Thanks! I was
stuck for an idea for a column this time out and you helped
me out a lot. Listen, anything you want, feel free to .
. . what's that?
Eh? Ah . . . no. I'm not even sure that's legal. At least
not when you point it that way.
With that out of the way . . . endings, then. Probably
the hardest damn part of the story, when you come down to
it. Starting a story is relatively easy, you just need an
arresting image and a halfway decent idea (and even then,
it's not a strict requirement) and you're on your way. Once
you've started, continuing is not that difficult, since
you just sort of plug along and add more dialogue and descriptions
and characters and plot twists until you have this jumbled
mess that hopefully will make sense to more than one person.
I'm not saying that your story is automatically good (although
I'm sure that your mother would just adore it) but the actual
mechanics of writing, the beginning and the middle, aren't
really that hard when you get down to it. Endings, though,
ah now that's where things get interesting.
You can start a story in the middle, that goes without
saying. Some of the best thrillers or suspense stories are
the ones that throw you right in the middle of it all and
they explain things as you go, keeping you reading while
you're trying to catch up. That's fine, for a beginning.
However, in most cases, an ending has to do just what it
says it does . . . end the story. And sometimes that's not
so easy. It's not as simple as getting to a certain point
and going, "Oh, I guess we're done" and then just
stopping the story. The best endings wrap things up, leaving
the reader wanting more, even though there isn't any more,
they just turn the page and it's blank paper. They give
the hero a happy ending, they put him with the girl, they
have the villain defeated and his castle blown up. The more
dramatic types of stories tend to end that way, a sense
of putting all the toys back in the box now that you're
done with them. It's not the same as just pulling the plug
on the story right after it all happens, or your writing
might look like a breathless elementary school pupil "And
we went in and got the girl but the bad guy tried to stop
us and so we had to fight back and the castle blew up. The
end." Don't do that, please. You just make it worse
for the rest of us. An ending has to come at a logical point
in the story, the aftermath of the climax, after it all
has come together and the dust has settled, you give us
one last look at the heroes and maybe a hint at the new
direction their lives will take, if any, and sign off, having
given us what we really wanted all along, an entertaining
diversion and a fine story.
Of course, not every story involves gunfire and desperate
attempts at lovemaking in the shadows of erupting bombs
(I want that to be the title of my autobiography, someday).
A fair number of tales require not the slam-dunk type of
ending but something a little more sedate, something that
is akin to the reflection nature of the story. I'm explaining
this poorly, I know and I apologize. But some stories are
more thematic in nature and in those case you want the ending
to echo and deepen the themes of the story, harken back
to the beginning and give the reader something to think
about, some final lingering image, a choice line to take
with them after the book has been closed and the novel shelved.
I find those are the endings that remain with me most of
all, that still resonate even as I haven't touched the books
in years. Sometimes I catch myself flipping through them
in stores, going right to the end and rereading the last
page or two, just to reenact that feeling again, of everything
closing down. Sometimes the store clerk taps me on the shoulder
and tells me that I've been staring at the same page for
over an hour and I'm starting to creep the other customers
out. Then we have a different kind of ending.
Endings are always the hardest damn part. But I've said
that already. It is worth repeating though. More than anything
else, it's the bit the reader takes home with them when
everything is finished. A lot of times it can make or break
the book, as I'm sure we can all attest to. How many times
have we read a book or seen a movie and described it as
"Oh, it was pretty decent but the ending sucked.",
as if that's all there was to it. Sometimes it's all we
remember. I'm no different. I can't really describe the
plot details of Robert Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will
Travel but by God that last line slays me every time.
Also, the last page or so of John Crowley's Little, Big
is one of those things that, when I see it sitting in the
bookstore, I generally take a second to reread (see, I do
practice what I rant about) because it affected me so much.
Same with Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. And the last
line in Kim Stanley Robinson's The Wild Shore, "I
think I'll stay here and write another book" has stayed
with me even though it's been almost ten years since I read
the damn thing. And that's what makes them so nerve-wracking
(the fact alone that your competition is staggering . .
. but then without ego I don't think any of us would be
writers . . . if I wasn't an arrogant son of a you know
what I probably would spend all of my time staring at a
blank computer screen instead of reading Gravity's Rainbow
and going "Hey, I'm sure I can do that" . . .
it's either arrogance or monumental stupidity, decide for
yourselves) because your last chance to plant the story
like a dart in someone's brain. The money shot, if you would.
And like I said before, it's easy to just keep chugging
along, stringing plot twist after plot twist along, but
to actually stop and say "Okay, we're done?" and
actually be done, that's takes practice. Ten pages
too early and the reader feels unsatisfied. Ten pages too
late and you've overstayed your welcome. Hitting the target
is not an easy task. Out of all the endings I've written,
there's only a handful that I'm really happy with and I'm
sure I'm not alone on that.
How do you go about it, then? I'm going to paraphrase someone
who I can't remember who said that if you do your beginning
well enough the ending will basically write itself. And
that makes sense. Even if you're clearly making the story
up as you go along (not that I would know anything about
that) once you get to the point where you have to start
thinking about, "Well gee how am I going to wrap up
all this crap?" if you started out strong enough then
you'll look at it and see that there's only one way it can
end. I'm not saying that every story has to pull a Finnegans
Wake (or a Dhalgren, since we're shamelessly
name-dropping today) and wrap right around itself like some
kind of demented snake but that if the goal is firmly enough
in mind when you start, the destination will be just as
clear by the time you end. The logical stopping point will
seem just that, logical.
So with that said, this is a good point to wrap the class
up for today and-
Hm, what's that? Oh? Oh, that's right, I'm supposed to
be actually critiquing a story here today as well.
Whoops. I knew that. Let's see what we have on deck today
. . .
Hey, Gabe's story is ending! Whoa, what a nice coincidence,
almost like I planned it that way. Ha! My wit is effortless
and not based on jokes so corny your grandfather might try
to harvest them.
But, seriously, with Gabe being the first august writer
here to actually finish a long-form story on this here website,
I think it's only proper that we dedicate the column to
his efforts and see how well he did. That said, I have been
trying to review every chapter of his tale and I think I
skipped the one right before this. However I have read it
and hopefully I'll get to it in detail another day. But
I did want to talk about endings and since this is the last
chapter, off we go. Too late to stop now! Somebody stop
me!
So. The last chapter. Gabe wastes no time dropping us in
the middle of the action, although I'm not sure of the differences
between the italics version in the first section and the
rest of the plain text . . . is it one of Valdor's visions,
or is someone watching the fight from another location (Sidria
was following along in some fashion, if I remember correctly).
Since it seems to illustrate some of Valdor's thoughts,
I presume it must be one of his visions but having read
this story over the course of several months, I can't really
be accused of interpreting things properly. I do notice
that we seemed to be dropped right into the battle between
the Mad Priest and Valdor, which was sort of jarring, to
the point where I thought I missed something. Especially
the point where Valdor comments that the battle had gone
on longer than anticipated and I realized I couldn't remember
any of the battle at all. That's when I went back and read
the last chapter (realizing that I had missed one, sorry)
although that one really didn't have much to do with Valdor
trying to stab people and then went and read the previous
one . . . which is where Valdor was about to get into the
fight. I'm not sure if tactically that's a good move from
a story standpoint, especially since the story has been
leading up to this combat, on some level. After all, we
have Valdor getting ready to dive into the fray, as it were
and then we take a chapter off while Sidria goes about doing
quasi-evil things and when we finally get back to the fight,
it's like we took a commercial break and the fight has been
going on the entire time we weren't paying attention. It
messes the flow up a little bit, and with the priest talking
like this is the first time in the fight he's started to
speak (odd, since the fight appears to have gone on for
some time) you have what amounts to a "whoa, back up
a step there, what?" moment. I would probably either
a) pretend that's the beginning of the fight or b) actually
show Valdor leaping into battle, especially since that's
a guaranteed crowd pleasing "Hell's yeah!" moment
for the readers, with Valdor taking a stand and action taking
the field. As it stands, the beginning dilutes some of its
own impact and comes across as a tad jumbled.
It recovers quickly enough, once you get into the flow
of things, although it seems like the bombast quotient on
the prose has gone way up. We're really in high fantasy
territory now, and this is definitely sword-and-sorcery
stuff here, complete with all its pluses and minuses. Anyone
who liked Robert E. Howard probably won't mind this, since
now the story seems to have a pulpier feel, with the crazy
priest and the stout warrior and the weird ceremonies, although
at some points it all seems to just go right over the top,
almost gleefully so. Hey, I don't mind it, but some people
might find it a bit excessive, talking about words striking
a piercing blow to Valdor's heart and melting the tough
exterior of his hardened warrior spirit. Everyone's mileage
may vary. I'm going to carve that on my tombstone, I think.
Still, things do seem really out of order in the beginning
for reasons that I can't explain, with the fight being briefly
interrupted to explain that Hadrian, who we thought was
okay, might be near death because the priest kicked him
really hard. Again, I really can't see any narrative purpose
to skipping that and skipping the beginning of the fight
and then two paragraphs into the chapter telling us about
it anyway. If you're not going to use that moment as the
cliffhanger from the previous chapter (and the actual cliffhanger
from chapter four was actually pretty decent, with the whole
weird ceremony about to start) then I would use it as the
start to this chapter, with something like, "When the
priest struck at Hadrian, Valdor knew the time had come
to finally act" and then explain that as he rushes
into battle. It's like you're trying to drop us in the thick
of things and ladle out exposition at the same time and
I'm not sure that it works.
The fight, when you come down to it, is well choreographed.
Fights really aren't easy to do and anyone who thinks so
probably hasn't tried to write many of them beyond "Bill
punched Bob and he went down." If you're trying to
write about two sweaty, strong willed men who's only goal
for the next minute or so is to kill the other guy as fast
as possible, you'll find that it's hard to not make it seem
like either a mess or boring, or a boring mess. Generally
some knowledge of fighting techniques helps, although I'm
not saying you have to go out and become a black belt in
karate so that you can write a decent fight scene between
two warriors with swords. It won't hurt though, trust me.
Field experience is always good and those readers out there
who were quite the scrappers in their youth will find themselves
well served in this kind of thing, since street fighting
is probably the closest equivalent to man-to-man fighting
the fantasy world will ever see. But they are a bugger to
write properly because you are trying to convey that these
two men (or women, to be fair . . . or aliens, to be all-inclusive)
are actively seeking to kill each other and you're trying
to do it in an interesting way. Because you think it's easy
to write, "He punches and dodges and then the other
guy dodges and punches" but it gets really old after
a few sentences. So you have to spice it up a bit without
going completely crazy and drowning the fight in description.
And you have to get a sense of "what next?" picturing
the two people fighting and going "Okay, if he does
that, what will the other guy do?" almost like a game
of chess where skipping a move can mean getting hurt or
maimed or dying, if all doesn't go well. You have to have
a sense of where the players are at all times, because even
if not everyone is involved in the fight, they aren't going
to be sitting back and having a cigarette (unless they're,
you know, really cool). The feel you're going for is carefully
constructed chaos, without making it look like you planned
out every single move (which can apply to the story at large
as well, I guess, since I'm so full of insight today). If
they have swords, are they only using that, or are they
trying to punch or kick or trip or grab the other guy as
well? Keep in mind that it's all happening at the same time,
it's not "he takes a shot and then she takes a shot"
and so on in that fashion. Chances are they're both trying
to hit each other at the same time. I generally try to treat
each fight from a movie perspective, imagining camera angles
and whatnot in an attempt to figure out how the reader can
best see what's going on, trying to imbue the whole scene
with a feeling of kinetics, that everything is in constant
motion, moving the viewpoint around continuously that so
that things don't slow down. The best fight scenes utilize
those dynamics and some other ones that I'm no good at (terrain
and environment are two other things to consider . . . you
never know when a tree or ledge might come in handy) and
although not every scene has to be epic, even the smaller
ones can be memorable if you put a little effort into it.
Of course, multiply the "two guy fight" by a
factor of several and you've got a real interesting mess
on your hands. And we won't even get into battles. Leave
that for War and Peace. Plus, we're getting off-topic.
Which I never do. Ever. Who likes butter?
Ahem. So how did Gabe do? Pretty decent, actually. Valdor
and the priest really are trying to kill each other and
Gabe manages to convey that with a variety of different
sword cuts and other attempts to stab each other through
vital organs. I like how the priest is handy with the dagger
and not afraid to throw the spellcasting around either.
Gabe doesn't go overboard with that, although spells with
names like "Imbued Divinity" and "Mental
Chaos" probably go dangerously close to Dungeons and
Dragon's territory, although such moments are fleeting and
easily passed over. But the fight itself whirls and dodges
(I like when Valdor uses the knives as a backup to keep
the priest away) and if the descriptions become almost overly
elaborate, threatening to drown out the primal simplicity
of the battle, we can blame that on the conventions of the
genre, which seems to demand this type of affected presentation
of events. This is the centerpiece of the story on some
level, although we really don't get a sense of the stakes
other than "Kill him, Valdor, kill him!" which
may be due to the pacing of the story, we really haven't
had time to build the priest or the ceremony up to the level
of This Must Be Stopped. The priest must be defeated because
he is evil (hey, he hit a Halfling, that's not nice) and
weird ceremonies are evil and Valdor has to do it because
who else is available. But the desperate sense of "man,
if we screw this up, we're toast" really isn't here
because the aura of danger isn't here. The priest is trying
to use the girl to attract a shard of Odan (I think I made
the obligatory vulgar joke about that last time, so we'll
refrain, surprisingly enough) but the problem with that
(and this again is a fantasy issue, not Gabe's) is that
we don't really know what the shard does. It has
a fancy name and vague powers and other than the fact that
everyone wants it, we're not sure what the big deal is.
I have the same problem with the One Ring from Tolkien's
trilogy, because all the bleedin' thing seems to do is make
people turn invisible, which while neat isn't really a power
you can take the world over with. The difference is there,
Tolkien surrounded the central story (destroy the Ring)
with epic good versus evil stuff and a real sense that if
Sauron got the ring, it would be Really Bad. You don't know
what the bugger would do with it when he got his immaterial
hands on the bauble, but you knew it wasn't good and there
was no doubt about that. Here, it's not so clear and while
"it's not as good as Lord of the Rings"
definitely isn't the worst place for anyone to be (if I
were a sliver as good as he was, I'd be rich . . . as it
were, I'm a healthcare professional, frighteningly enough)
we don't get enough of the scope here besides "Valdor
and the Mad Priest fight! And fight! And fight and fight
and fight!" without a real sense of what it all means.
The priest does have a wonderful internal monologue which
thankfully sheds light on things but the end result is .
. . what? Power? Immortality? The priest wants to bring
about the Dark Child without explaining what that really
is, other than Not Good. At some point a little more background
probably should have been given (not that I should be one
to talk about throwing readers into without a life-preserver)
but we're at the fight now, so too late. We'll figure it
out as we go.
However, I do want to point out that the Mirror Image spell
(which is what we called it in D&D, and yes I played
it a lot as a teenager, not that it should be a surprise)
was a stroke of brilliance of the priest's part and a nice
bit of tactical thinking. The priest really tosses the spells
out and I like how if one doesn't work he just moves onto
another. He keeps the fight interesting almost on his own
and gives Valdor a series of obstacles to overcome that
don't feel forced. It adds a bit of variety to what would
have simply been two men grappling with each other. Although
I do think that Valdor could have been a little more aggressive
in the fight, a lot of times he seems hesitant, when everyone
knows that the best way to thwart a spellcaster is to disrupt
his concentration. After you've punched him in the jaw,
you don't step back, man! You press! Press! I like
how the moment dovetails nicely with the vision that Valdor
had in the beginning of the story. Readers like it when
foreshadowing plays out, it shows a bit of planning on the
side of the writer. It does give more of an arc to the story
and a sense that this was all leading somewhere. The sense
of doom that Valdor has helps too, since we don't know how
exactly this is going to turn out, whether things will mirror
the vision or Valdor will be able to change things enough
so that he survives.
The next scene strikes an odd tone for me, somehow. The
woman, who Valdor has been searching for throughout the
entire story, just goes and gives the Shard to Hadrian,
which strikes me as a tad anti-climatic, since the fight
isn't even over yet. There's an element of "Oh, is
this what you were looking for? Here you go" that makes
you wonder where the struggle comes in. One of the biggest
artifacts (according to the story) ever and when Hadrian
walks in the woman just hands it to him? You've got to earn
it, somehow, that's the whole point of fantasy. Granted,
this is just the first step on the way to a larger conflict
(and there's plenty of Shards out there, it seems) but something
just seems . . . off about it. Yes, they didn't come there
specifically for the Shard, that's duly noted, but it was
part of the package, however tangentially. Also, wasn't
the woman a willing participant in the ceremony just a few
chapters ago? The impression I got from the end of chapter
four was that she was playing along with this, she even
warned the Mad Priest about Hadrian and recited the incantation
with the priest, all while not being restrained. Now, you
can claim that she was drugged or under some kind of spell
but the woman or the narrative never seems to indicate that.
So she was all about bringing about the Dark Child only
a few chapters ago and now not only is she dying but she
doesn't want to do that and feels that Hadrian is the one
who should be the guardian of the Shard. Why was she helping
him then, if that's what she was doing? The story doesn't
say. She does note that her identity was betrayed to the
priest, but does that mean she was only pretending to help
him until Valdor and Hadrian showed up? Because if she was
captured and she had this vaguely powerful Shard on her
the entire time, why didn't she just take the priest out
when she took the restraints off? Instead she went to the
altar with him and got herself killed, essentially. Lot
of good the Shard did her anyway, since while it heals Hadrian's
wounds and disrupts the Mirror Image spell, it can't help
take care of the Korgun's poison. Awful selective little
object there, but then these magic artifacts always were
capricious. Anyone who's ever played a Rod of Seven Parts
campaign will probably know what I mean.
On a technical note, you're still throwing more than one
person speaking in the same paragraph, which tends to confuse
things more than it needs to. It happens a couple of times
in this chapter and while I'm not sure if it's a formatting
error or not, watch out for it. We English speakers love
our conventions, we're lost without them.
The last sequence of the battle is actually quite suspenseful,
once Hadrian joins the fight. I like how Valdor is basically
getting his ass kicked, which is something you don't normally
see in fantasy. Generally the hero tends to overcome the
odds and rally to save the day but not only did Valdor never
get the upper hand in the fight at any point (the priest,
crazy as he was, really did mop the floor with him), he
really was about to die if Hadrian didn't intervene. So
good show, short lad. You saved the day. I like how the
weapon comes into play, following the rule "If a gun
shows up in Act One, it has to go off by Act Three"
so again, it shows some good planning on Gabe's part, that
he had all his pieces in place. Even the vial had a use,
which we'll get to in a minute. Hadrian was also thankfully
visited by the Exposition Fairy before the final act went
down, so we know that Sidria is not up to anything good
and we get a sense of what her goals was (and considering
she cast a spell on Hadrian earlier, it's probably not a
good idea that Hadrian has the Shard). What it all leads
to we'll find out later, I imagine, in a future story. But
the seeds have been planted, in a sense.
The resolution, then. How does it all wrap up? Tragically,
as it turns out. The story really couldn't have ended worse
for the heroes. They don't save the girl, the priest is
killed, they get the Shard (which now means everyone wants
to kill him) but Valdor is apparently turned to stone by
his best friend. The vial hitting Valdor is real subtle
and I do like how we think everything is okay until the
very end . . . I don't know if it was Gabe's plan to make
us think that he's dead instead of merely sedentary rock
but that is what I thought at first, that he had dropped
dead while the fight was wrapping up, finally succumbing
to all his wounds. Judging by the little hymn Hadrian sings
at the end, I'm assuming that the vial missed the priest
and hit Valdor instead (way to dodge, Warrior Dude) and
turned him into solid rock. Yikes. I'm not sure why the
Shard couldn't change him back but again, capricious magical
artifact at play here, so we won't ask questions.
Considering the story was called "Torment" we
really couldn't say that it was going to end well, now,
could we? So in that aspect we got what we expected. I actually
thought this story was going to be way more epic than it
turned out to be and was quite surprised to find that it
was already over, especially after what really was only
a skirmish in the scheme of things. I definitely had a feeling
of "Gee, that was fast" although I think we're
going to find that this is only the first part in a series
of ongoing struggles, especially since Gabe gives himself
numerous directions to go in from here (getting Valdor turned
back to flesh, keeping the Shard safe, Sidria going after
the Shard and what her ultimate goals are, the creepy lizard
guy) so in that sense the ending is a resounding success,
because it lets us know that more is on the way. I think
the story started out threatening to go epic and widescreen
on us and in the end wound up being much smaller in scale,
but it's impossible to know which would have been the better
approach, since we don't have the two to compare. I'd have
to read the entire story again to see how it holds together,
the individual chapters were nicely done but I'm not sure
how it comes across when you run it all together, because
there are some definite rough patches and parts where motivations
and plot become a bit sketchy. It may simply be a case of
trying to do too many things at once but ambition is never
a bad thing to have and it can easily be harnessed for the
next story (which I'm sure is coming). It may be way too
soon to judge this until we have the whole tapestry laid
out before us, until we can really see how it all comes
together. A lot of stuff wasn't resolved but what was resolved
was taken care of pretty well.
I am assuming that Hadrian left the statue of Valdor sitting/standing
in the grove where he fell. It makes no sense for him to
carry the thing around with him, although it does seem weird
to just leave him there. But since none of my friends were
ever turned to stone, I really can't say what I would do
if the situation presented itself.
So things end back at the Inn, where they began, with revelry
and laughing, although we are minus a few players. The lizard
guy's threat at the end is appropriate because as Alan Moore
taught us almost twenty years ago, nothing ever really ends,
and it won't be long before we're thrown back into the fray
again, dodging magical spells and swords and fantastic creatures
and watching the characters do their best to stay alive.
There's a number of places the overall story can go from
here, but for now it's over and we have to be content with
that. I don't think this is the final end of Valdor but
I did appreciate what little time we spent with him and
look forward to seeing the whole crew together again at
some point. Which I'm sure is only a matter of time.
The kind of endings I like best in fantasy are the ones
that remind us that these are people living ordinary lives
in a world that to them is quite ordinary, no different
than our world except it has dragons and magic and stuff.
But people live and people die and have day jobs and love
their wives and kids and all that stupid stuff that never
seems to fit when the epic crap rolls around. And when all
the wizards and gods and kings are done fighting and the
world is saved, your ordinary life is all you have to go
back to and no matter what happens, we have to know that
life does go on, in the shadow of good and evil and the
stuff that we don't notice until it rolls right down our
street and doesn't let us ignore it anymore. The best endings
in fantasy resonate for me in that fashion, that these are
regular people who are only caught up in it because they
have no choice (true or not) and are only happy to go back
to the way things were, when it's all over. The examples
are heartbreakingly few. Sam's "Well, I'm back"
at the end of Lord of the Rings is about as perfect
as it gets. He's seen it all and now he's going back to
the wife and kids and moving on. Belgareth's conversation
with the Orb at the end of David Eddings' The Belgariad,
after all the we-saved-the-world partying is over, when
they're the only two entities awake in the palace. There
aren't many that move me in that respect, that's why I'm
grateful for the few I have encountered and always look
forward to the next one.
This ending isn't on those levels, but ninety-nine percent
of published works aren't. What it does, it does well enough,
however. Gabe intelligently doesn't end it with some sorceress
casting magic spells or the gods lounging about on the clouds,
laughing at mortals. Hadrian sings at the Inn, the way he
always does, and thinks about his dead friend. It hurts,
but he keeps performing anyway. Life goes on. If you get
that much, then you're heads and tails above most people.
Good job, then.
This was fun. I'll miss these characters, but I'm sure
there'll be around again sometime soon. I look forward to
it.
So I think that wraps us up for this time and . . . hm,
what's that? What is my favorite all time ending? Now you
know I don't play favorites. You really want to know? Well,
all right. Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, which
I've already referred to a few times.
Why is that?
Well, you see it's simply because-
- MB
10.21.05
"At dawn they ride again, they'll haul you out to the
streets, they'll burn your papers and your empty trash cans,
beat this thought into your head, singing over and over
again 'all you life is obscene'. . ." - My Morning
Jacket, "At Dawn"
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