When Does It End?

By Sharon May

Since I have been losing weight this past month, I have been asked, “What’s your goal?” I answer by stating weights I’d be happy with, but add there is no goal because I don’t yet know how much I can lose. Not having a goal in mind reminds me of writing fiction or poetry. Unlike life, a literary work captures only a moment in time, starting and ending in medias res. The question is, “How do I know when I’ve reached the end?”

I have known how I wanted to end a story twice in my life, but had no idea where to start. So I wrote backwards, asking “What has to happen to make this the ending?”

Usually I have a first line, image, or character I want to explore and begin writing, discovering the ending when I get there. This organic method is my preference for the writing experience as it allows me to be as entertained and as surprised as the reader. But it does make me question whether the ending works. A friend says that he can tell when I discover the ending because I have a tendency to slap it on too early instead of letting the ending come at the end. I understand what he means and am trying to break that habit.

An ending should answer all the questions or themes introduced, resolve the conflicts, and satisfy the reader, according to how-to articles. But that doesn’t even come close to explaining how to know if you have the end that is meant to be.

A case in point is a poem I wrote recently in memory of my cousin who died last fall. In the first draft, I ended on a note that emphasizes his role in his death, and the resulting tone is bitter. I wanted to share the poem with my family, but knew their wounds were too fresh to deal with such an ending. I consulted a poet friend, and he wrote an alternative family-friendly ending. He used the same words for the majority of the poem, but changed the last three lines to create an ending meant to console.

It is hard to imagine that the exact same words could be used in two poems with dramatically different endings, themes, and tones, but they both work equally well and are satisfying to the reader. They are just different.

So there are no finite or definite endings. An ending can be swapped out for another, depending on the author’s intentions. Some post-modern works emphasize this by offering multiple endings, and the individual reader can choose the one he or she finds most satisfying.     

This can be unsettling for a writer who expects THE END. But in reality it never is that; it’s just an ending, a place to stop. 

I could conclude by offering advice on writing endings.  But as Bartleby the Scrivener says, “I prefer not to.”