Resolution

Hi guys,

We have all heard it in the classroom, “Your story needs a resolution”. To this piece of advice I say “No it doesn’t”.

Why does our fiction need to have any resolution at all? They tell us because it leave a sense of satisfaction in the reader, it is good for telling a story. All this advice is okay if you want to write a stand alone book. Also life doesn’t give us satisfying conclusions to our lives why should our stories. Is it in the hope that we will seek out to be a piece with all people. No many people die and move on without saying farewell or being prepared for the great change that happened to me. I moved to China very quickly the decision to move to China was very quick and it came as a shock to many people. I am sure that parts of my family are still in shock.

The point is that there is no resolution to many problems or situations that we find ourselves these days. We all know that life imitates art and art imitates art so why hasn’t our writing caught up with this paradigm? Why do we as writers keep seeking an ending to our books when there is no resolutions to be had?

I have read many books some of them have been featured on this blog. One thing that I have seen coming about more and more in writing, is the unsatisfying ending. I call out those new writers, myself included in rushing to find a conclusion to a story so that it fits within a word limit, or some other arbitrary length that the publishing community has fostered on us as writers. The word limit specifications was set in the days when cost of printing a book was huge and mostly shouldered by the publisher. Now with the advent of self publishing or assisted self publishing why are getting stories that are still unfinished?

I say to you all, if you have hit 100,000 words and your story isn’t finished you can either do one of two things break your story into a smaller serial or keep writing. Please stop this hitting a certain word limit and wrapping up the story. I am sad to say it sours the story for me and if you want to write more and have more sales, then please end it well. It doesn’t have to be a happy ending, I am very happy to read a story where the main character becomes the bad guy that he fought in the beginning. Just make sure your story is well finished. The way your end a book should have as much thought put into it as the beginning of the book.

Keep writing and keep reading,

Peter