The Art of the Ending

I always think that the ending is the most difficult part for an author to write. Unless it’s a series of books, the characters are going to be left in limbo even if you tie up their stories with a nice little bow. There are a number of examples of stories where alternative endings have been discovered.

Charles Dickens wrote an original ending for Great Expectations where Pip and Estella meet again in 1861 and Pip finds that she is married and that no hope of romance exists. A friend persuaded him to write a more hopeful ending, the one that was actually used, where the opportunity for the two to finally get together is clearly suggested if not spelt out. Given everything that happened between them the ending that was used was clearly unrealistic, but it was the ending that the readers were hoping for so, onto the advice of that friend he gave them that hope, albeit in an ambiguous way.

There is, in many cases, a tension between what the author wants to write and what they feel their readers would like to see. Arthur Conan Doyle  had had enough of Sherlock Holmes and wanted to write other characters, so he sent him to his doom over Reichenbach Falls. The readers, however, had not had enough of the detective and Conan Doyle found himself writing many further stories in the series after finding a way for Holmes to survive. It’s interesting to think about the continuing love for Holmes and to wonder if it would still be as strong if far fewer stories had been written.

I am just one reader and, occasionally I will find an ending frustrating or disappointing, but that is purely my opinion. It is the author, whose decision it is, who has lived with the book and the characters for so long and it is they who must decide on an ending that makes sense to them and gives them a feeling of completion. As my two examples above indicate, even the greatest writers have always been prey to public opinion, and nowadays there’s a growing market for the continuation of a character or a series after the author has died.

The idea of an ending that I would change probably shows my lack of understanding of the book. However, there was one ending that I was so shocked and upset by that I never read that book again. I was a massive fan of the Narnia books and I was full of anticipation when I picked up The Last Battle.  It was a very grim book throughout but I stuck with it, certain that C.S. Lewis would end the series on a high note. Instead, he abandoned Susan and told us that she was no longer a friend of Narnia. All of her siblings were called to the land they loved but she liked lipstick and boys and was reluctant to discuss their adventures because she was a teenager who was preparing to go out into the world and wanted to leave her childhood behind her at that time. I never forgave Lewis for leaving her alone and grieving for her family. It just seemed so spiteful towards a character I loved. That’s the ending I would change.