What Makes a Good Ending in a Book For You?
I know - so much depends on the book you’re reading, right?
What matters for me is that the ending is appropriate to the characters and story. I do like happy endings but also appreciate that does not suit every tale told).
Sometimes it is apt for a character to reach a point of understanding where you can sense if they carry on with what they have come to understand, they will eventually get their happy ending but for now this is the point where they’re at. And that is a worthwhile journey in and of itself.
Fairytales are often not the happy ever after fest they can sometimes seem to be. The original versions of The Snow Queen and The Little Mermaid have violence in them. Certainly Disney could not have filmed the latter as Hans Christen Andersen wrote it.
Yet the stories as originally written show well thought out characters, the situations they’re in are reasonable for the world in which they live, and the ending for The Little Mermaid is poignant to say the least.
It was my wake-up call to the fact not all stories necessarily end happily as we would understand the term, though I like to think the mermaid at last found some peace in her life.
So what I really want then is a “good” ending which wraps the story up well. Perhaps it is up to us as readers to recognise “happy” doesn’t always equate to “good” here.
What matters for me is that the ending is appropriate to the characters and story. I do like happy endings but also appreciate that does not suit every tale told).
Sometimes it is apt for a character to reach a point of understanding where you can sense if they carry on with what they have come to understand, they will eventually get their happy ending but for now this is the point where they’re at. And that is a worthwhile journey in and of itself.
Fairytales are often not the happy ever after fest they can sometimes seem to be. The original versions of The Snow Queen and The Little Mermaid have violence in them. Certainly Disney could not have filmed the latter as Hans Christen Andersen wrote it.
Yet the stories as originally written show well thought out characters, the situations they’re in are reasonable for the world in which they live, and the ending for The Little Mermaid is poignant to say the least.
It was my wake-up call to the fact not all stories necessarily end happily as we would understand the term, though I like to think the mermaid at last found some peace in her life.
So what I really want then is a “good” ending which wraps the story up well. Perhaps it is up to us as readers to recognise “happy” doesn’t always equate to “good” here.
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