Changing Seasons, Beautiful Endings
There’s just something about endings. Something to love, something to hate, something that stays with you beyond the “goodbye.” A truly good ending stays with you. It makes you think. And lately, I’ve been thinking about how books end, and the various ways that they end.
This has probably been brought about due to the changing of the seasons around here lately. We’ve been having a very gradual fading into Fall here, with Summer lingering far longer than usual (or at least, it feels like it, I only have about 5 years here in Wisconsin to compare this year to). The weather has been warmer for this time of year, bopping about through September and even into mid-October in the low-to-high 70s; and the changing leaves have been brilliant and vivid in their autumnal array, and have seemed to last longer, as well.
But this past week or two have seen a dramatic change. The temperatures suddenly dropped into the 30s. We even had our first snow, and a good-sized snow it was! A veritable blizzard, in fact! (You can see pictures on my INSTAGRAM!) (Side note, you can see my latest instagram pictures right on the home page of this website, as well).
And while I am usually all about Autumn and apple cider and hot chocolate and blustery days and eagerly anticipating the beauty of wintery wonderlands and snowy vistas… I’ve been having a hard time this year letting go of Summer. Watching it end has got me feeling a little out of sorts and morose. Kind of like some stories. Which got me thinking about endings, and how in stories there are kind of four seasons of endings, and hey, it’s not a perfect metaphor, but I’m going to run with it because this is my blog and I can.
Spring Endings
Some endings are sweet and fresh. A burst of sudden bloom in a chapter. They tend to go with sweet, spring-time-ish books, the kind that make you feel like someone just brought you a bouquet of the first violets or daffodills of the year just after they peeked up through the snow. They are beautiful and delicate things: Happily Ever Afters and weddings and blissfully optimistic moments in which all is right with the world. I love springtime endings. They promise warmth and summer and beauty and an end to trials.
Summer Endings
These stories end in a blaze of glory, a brilliant sunset of spectacular color and a bittersweet longing for it all to linger just a little while longer. These are some of my favorite endings when I read a story because they are intense and gorgeous. And yet, they are also some of my least favorites, because they inevitably do come to an end, and I often find myself dissatisfied with the conclusion. These tend to be the stories that I mull over and eventually imagine up my own little head-canon of “what happened next,” especially if there are no sequels forthcoming.
Autumn Endings
Other endings are like a sudden and unexpected snowfall, where the season ends and it leaves you reeling, wondering what happened. These tend to drop you off a cliff and leave you scrabbling for purchase, hoping that you can pull yourself up onto solid ground. They are the ones where you’re happily reading along and then the ending is upon you and almost nothing is tied up nicely. I know that a lot of people don’t love cliff-hanger endings, but so long as there IS a sequel forthcoming (or, better yet, already available, I have no problem with these so long as there is a satisfying ending at some point when the series is finally over). There is a kind of breathless suspense to these stories, where you look at how many pages there are left to read and you can’t imagine it all wrapping up nicely. Sometimes they manage it, sometimes they drop you off a cliff, but either way, the end comes suddenly.
Winter Endings
And then finally there is the Winter Ending. These endings tend to linger a bit beyond the blaze of glory that the climax holds. And yet, they tend to be a bit darker than the Springtime versions. This type of ending is like the first stars popping out after the sunset. Unlike the sweet HEAs of Spring, or the wistful longing for the dying days of Summer, or the lurching suddenness of Autumn… Winter endings leave you with enthusiasm for what tomorrow will bring and wonder at the beauty of the darkness in between. The last rays of sunlight fade and as you look up into the sky and gaze at the stars... you realize isn't really all that dark, after all.
How about you, dear Reader? What are your favorite types of endings? Did you like my little metaphor? If you are a writer, do you enjoy writing the same types of endings that you love to read? Do you have any examples of excellent endings that you have read or watched?