Endings

Story endings: short stories seem to end themselves. But the ending of a novel, especially if you are arty-farty like me, endings are a "drive you nuts" story component. Recently, I needed desperately to wrap-up the story-line of a novel I have been working on many years. Regardless of my casual make-it-up-as-I-go approach, I got to the ending and my head was screaming, “Yes. But what does this story MEAN? What are you saying?” I always think I’m intending no particular “message,” but all through the story, in my choices of adjectives and adverbs, the character names, all that, I’m deliberately wanting to convey at least a certain way I want the story to feel. The ending needs to be another version of what I’m “saying.”  Recently, I spent MANY MONTHS struggling with the ending of the many-years story. I tried half a dozen versions before I BLIUNDERED onto what I could call "a ride" of an ending. But even now, as I approach those final chapters in the current revision cycle of “many years,” I am in fear of how hard it will be to give it some beauty, because the story simply MUST be sublime.

For more “endings,” you might take a look at my confounding story Big Endians in WORKs

Everybody, about Hemingway and my feelings about my assuming I understand his demise: we