Oct
9th
2013
Stories Ought to Have Endings · 7:55am Oct 9th, 2013
Too many of the stories on FiMFiction are endless epics. Sometimes, that makes sense as the only way a story could go. Oftimes, it just makes the entire thing plod. It's been frustrating to me to see stories update again and again without ever coming near to resolving their plots. I'm more impressed with an author if they write two 50,000 word stories than if they write one 100,000 word story.
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Causal Quill · 381 views
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Amen. Thank you.
Uh, that's all I had to say.
This needs to be said more often.
Be careful with endings though. Make sure it actually concludes the story, and is not just an ending for ending's sake.
1406280
Thank you for the support!
1406347
There are so many writer's help groups around, so much concentration of talent in this fandom, I'm kind of shocked that I never see guides on "how to bring stories to a satisfying close". Have I just missed them?
1406350
You mean like what I did? That was totally an ending for ending's sake. Honestly, Whispering is just plain incomplete, and I know it. I'm just burnt on continuing it.
1406411
Hmm, well, yes actually, I suppose that's true. However I wasn't specifically referring to Whispering.
I suppose if I was alluding to anything, I was alluding to the recent completion of a particular trilogy I had been following for some time. For all that trilogy was an enjoyable read, the last story "ended" more than it "completed".
Actually, in some ways that last story was guilty of not only ending just to end, but running too long as well. Part of the problem was it gathered up far too many plot arcs, such as it would have probably required two chapters to resolve them all, at least. Gah, I should stop talking about someone else's story like this, especially as the trilogy was one I vastly enjoyed regardless of how it ended.
I don't know, I did a modified Train Station Goodbye for "Traveling Tutor and the Librarian" that was somewhat the end and not the end at the same time, and I thought that worked pretty well. Sometimes the game still has parts to tell when you try to close the book, and it makes you go into extra innings (and sequels), and some of these stories are just one long series of events, but that's the way life is too.
But yeah. At or around 100k words, you should be groping for that "The end" button.
1406423
I wasn't offended when I thought you were poking at me for not finishing Whispering Stars. I was amused. What I thought in response to your comment was, "Yeah, I deserved that."
I've not a clue what story you were actually referring to, but you probably shouldn't tell me anyways.
That's a mighty dangerous precedent you're setting, sometimes a story needs to set everything just so, and make everything satisfying.
Putting a cap on a story stifles possibilities.
Additionally, some of the stories here might be better understood as serials, stories in which a new event occurs in the same general setting with each chapter/arc, each with their own little resolution.
1406544
Limitations breed creativity. Serials eventually degrade.
More importantly, seeing a story hang as 'incompleted' forever is painful. Breaking Bricks was one of my favorite stories while it was still ongoing, y'know. I called it, "the best entry in the entire Pony Noir genre." There was a fad for that kind of story at the time. It drifted incomplete, then went to haitus, then was cancelled.
Now, Breaking Bricks was never a serial. It was a story with an obvious plotline and fair momentum. The fact that it stuttered out isn't because of its structure. Still, it illustrates the fate of every story that doesn't try to cap itself. Every single "serial" will eventually fade out with its plot looking like a frayed rope. Everyone who was looking forward to 'what happens next' will be disappointed. It's not a pleasant way for the story to end, and it's just a fact that stories which never get around to ending must always end that way.
At some point, an ending for a sake of an ending actually is desirable, if only to provide a hair of closure for people who've begun suffering plot fatigue.
1406572 By all means, have an ending, but don't try to dictate some arbitrary number as a cap, some of the best stories I've read on this site are over 100,000 words long.
1406606
I never dictated or even suggested a cap. You came up with that yourself. (Edit: Or, in fairness, you might have picked it up from Georg, who interpreted it in that manner first.) There is a story on my user page called, "Contraptionology!" which I attempt to get everyone to read. Pray tell how long is it? There is another even longer in my recommendations, if you peruse them (which I do encourage).
My very second sentence in this blog post was to acknowledge that some stories must go long. 100,000 words was not a cap or even a reference to anything in existence. That sentence was only to establish that volume of stories matters. To write a long story is impressive. To have written two stories at half the length is more impressive. I could have used the numbers 150,000 and 75,000 to make the same point, or indeed the numbers 20,000 and 10,000.
1406622
That suggested you think 50,000 word stories are somehow intrinsically better, however, you provide no reasons for why it is better or more impressive.
I'm inclined to say you're trying to conflate and tie together your tastes with what's actually good in story-telling/writing.
1406628
I'm inclined to say you're being impolite and seeking to "win" an argument rather than seeking enlightenment for us both. You haven't addressed the issue of dangling plot threads, reader disappointment, or plot fatigue. Flatly denying that I've given reasons just makes it seem like you're being emotional and not paying much attention to the substance of the discussion. Reasons were given. You haven't so much as said you disagree with them.
Did I give you a personal insult at some point? I'm not aware of it; I'm certain it wasn't intentional.
Well said. Knowing how to end is a really important skill. In fact, my (successful) ideas usually start with an ending even if it changes, as it has sometimes. But way back when I first started writing I would just keep producing words with no idea of where I was going. I think I wrote this 40,000 word sci-fi thing by splurging words out one at a time with no clear idea of where I was going. After that many words, I suspect not much had actually happened.
If you look at the structure of a well written novel and think about what actually happens, you tend to notice that there are far fewer scenes that you might guess (or at least, it always seems this way to me). In Brandon Sanderson's Final Empire, he's quite willing to skip huge chunks of time to speed things along and make the story fit in 300 words.
Actually, this is one of the places fan fiction can enter the picture, particularly the [slice of life] stuff, because if I really like the characters in something, I end up wishing I could have seen more of the day to day stuff that would otherwise be cut for brevity.
PS: Welcome back, by the way. I'm glad your not gone because you tend to have interesting things to say.
1406638 It is not my intention to be impolite, and I am indeed seeking to both be enlightened and enlighten in turn. Hence my beginning my conversation that you were setting a dangerous precedent. I'm gravely concerned for you if you cannot find and state the circumstances in which a long story is warranted.
Dangling plot threads, reader disappointment, or plot fatigue are not intrinsically tied to word-count, I've see stories that got 'tired' after 10,000 words.
I should think that if one is concerned about these things, you should address them directly, rather than attributing it to word count without further qualification of when:
I agree. It's always sad to see an incomplete story. I'd be interested to see statistics on percentage of complete/incomplete stories on the site, actually. Might be interesting to see stuff like average words per story, average words per chapter, average chapters per story, and the like.
1406642
I've sat down and actually tried to count the scenes in a book. I believe I've done this three times now, or twice certainly. It's been a discomfiting experience. I failed at it! I couldn't clearly settle on a definition of what constituted a scene. I've never been able to break down a novel into its structure and component parts.
I ought to try that again.
I've been intending to read the Mistborn books for quite a while, and have never gotten around to it. More to the point, I've never seen them at a bookstore. I buy most of my books at physical stores. Admitting that makes me feel like a relic of an older time.
Pointing out that fanfics are to explore what got left on the cutting room floor in the 'canonical' works is a good point. It means that fanfics don't need as much structure in general. The requirements of a good fanfic are looser than the requirements of a good novel.
1406649
I'm glad of your reassurances of intent. I botched an assumption of good faith there. Not that I was wrong to push the no-reasons thing, but the misread created unnecessary stress; I would've phrased it differently.
It's a truism that stories should be shorter rather than longer, which is what I was getting at by giving several example lengths. A story should be as long as it needs to be to complete its narrative - and no longer. It's better to err on the side of too short than too long. A reader can fill in and extend the details of a story if they're interested in it. (Indeed, this entire site owes its existence to that capacity.) They can't unread things if you make them suffer through something unnecessary.
The hazards of plot fatigue and dangling threads are length-linked. A story can get tired at 10,000 words, but few do. It takes a distinct lack of concern (and/or a trollfic) to set up a plot thread and completely forget about it in the 10k weight bracket. Meanwhile, plot fatigue is based on how long you take to resolve plot points, so it's (almost) entirely about length. As length increases, the odds decline for an author to avert these problems. Even good stories and good writers will fail eventually. There are good stories on FiMFiction which are ultraheavyweight, and readers who fatigue easily just aren't going to be able to enjoy them.
I can give an example of this. This Platinum Crown, by Capn Chryssalid, is an example of a story that I lost track of due to its sheer size. The writing in it is actually very good. The imagery is evocative, the characters fascinating, the world building deep, and the plot managed to keep focus for as long as I stuck with the story. Those things pushed off the hazards of size for a while. They couldn't push them off forever. The story has structural problems.
What I'm really defending here isn't the superiority of short stories over long ones. I'm defending the primacy of structure. In order to accomplish more in a story with fewer words, you have to have some idea of what each scene is accomplishing, and how it moves towards resolution of the plot. Many fanfics are barely structured at all. They meander towards their end and may never reach it. They aren't short, snappy episodic things like proper serials.
If it is a grave concern that I cannot find and state the circumstances in which a long story is warranted, it is a grave concern that you cannot find and state the circumstances in which a long story isn't.
(Postscript: I actually can state when a long story is warranted. The optimal length of a story is based upon its complexity. Every scene should accomplish something. The more things the story has to accomplish, the more scenes it requires, and the longer it will get. Even then, a writer who can accomplish many things in one scene is being no kind of fool in doing so.)
1406707 I find your answer to my concerns well-thought out, and appreciate the discussion.
However, your answer to 1406642 has a statement that I and other authors, such as Wanderer D, unless I'm grossly mis-representing him, would find of worry.
To dispute this point, I will rely on Wanderer D's words rather than my own, as I find them quite more satisfactory.
1406823
Hey, be nice! I didn't say that fanfiction wasn't quality. I said it was easier. Are you insinuating that nothing easy is worth doing?
1406839 Far from it, I was attempting to state that fan fiction is still literary work, and so should be held to the same standards, and yes, requirements, as other works.
1406846
No, that doesn't work at all. That's like saying that novels should be held to the same standards and requirements as screenplays, and that both should be on the same standards and requirements as biographies. It's quite simply inapplicable. Fanfiction is a different beast. It's built on different assumptions, different motivations, and plays to a different target audience. Making it equivalent to "other works" in such a blithely generic fashion does it a disservice.
It's no insult to fanfiction that I would say it has looser requirements.
1406707
I've not actually done that either, at least not as a formal exercise. Sometimes when I get to the end of a good book, or as the credits of a good film are rolling, I think back over what actually happened, and often I find less actually happened than it feels like should have. This could be just me, but before I logically trace back thought what happened, I feel like it must have been a spinning blur of colour and plot. The characters didn't visit as many locations, or get into as many fights as I felt like they should have done.
Happily, Randal Munroe has done this for you for a few films:
http://xkcd.com/657/large/
So for example, how many lightsabre duels were there in the original star ways. Guess before counting. It's a small number, but there didn't have to be many for them to end up being iconic. Also, generally each film limits itself to three locations. Somehow, that is enough to let us extrapolate the rest of the universe with our imaginations. To write it out:
Tatonee -> Death Star -> Yavin/Space! | Hoth -> Deboba/cloud city | Tatonee -> Endor -> Space!
1406707
PS: Mistborn. Basically, Vin (main character) leans the magic of friendship. And some other stuff that may or may not be important. The books were the final straw that pushed me into ponies. True story. I wanted to see more stories about learning about the magic of friendship.
1406901
Haha! I remember ALL the lightsaber duels from the original star wars! I feel like... like more of a geek than I've felt for years. I thought there were three of them, then looked at the XKCD link you gave, which lists three.
I guess it is kind of odd, though. The lightsabers didn't have to be used much to establish everything we needed to know about them. The setting aspect is even bigger. A few sets on Tattooine are worth a galaxy of setting on their own.
1406846
I have to agree with Casual Quill here. Let's look at specifics.
A novel has to spend time on characterization and world building that a fanfic does not. In a fanfic, people already know and care about the characters. The fact that fanfic authors have no practice with designing or introducing a character is one of the reason OCs are so frequently painful. Yet the same author could write an amazing fanfic about canon characters without ever revealing this flaw he has.
Novels are published all at once, when the whole thing is complete. They often go through a lot of changes during that time, brushing up things that should have been longer or shorter or cut or added. Fanfics published chapter by chapter don't get that editing period. If you realize halfway through you should have hinted at something, or that you didn't need that chapter about AJ's hat, well... oh well.
Now, one place where novels are actually easier is that you don't have to worry as much about "in character" or OOC. When you're designing the characters you need to them to feel like real people, and you have to keep them consistent in the story, but no one is going to call it OOC if your scared-of-her-shadow character is afraid of snakes. However, fanfic readers know that Fluttershy is not afraid of snakes, so we have to work with that within our stories.
So in those ways, off the top of my head, original fiction and fanfiction should be judged on different standards. Saying that one is better than the other is like saying that TV dramas are better than novels -- you're comparing different formats. Things you would forgive in fanfic can't and shouldn't be forgiven in a novel, or vice versa.
But what this means is that great fanfic can be great in it's own way. The Sandman or The Watchmen aren't great novels, they're great graphic novels, but that doesn't make them worse than great novels (or better). The same is true of great fanfic. And here, we should be trying to write great fanfic.
I may make a blog post about this later, but it's fairly trivial, so for the moment I'm just going to stick this here as a historical note...
Thanks to the thoughts this conversation has triggered about the varying requirements of fanfiction and novels, I've put The Moonstone Cup into my secondary recommendations list, and pushed Wild, Sweet, and Cool into my primary recommendations. While I think The Moonstone Cup is a more awesome story, its first chapter does less to set up the characters and the setting than Wild, Sweet, and Cool's first chapter does. As such, WSC is more amenable to being read by someone unfamiliar with the fanfic community.
What do you think of the ending of Hamlet? Or of Shakespeare's works in general? I've seldom liked his endings. (Though often you can't blame this on the endings--there just isn't anywhere interesting to go given the setup and characters of, say, Romeo & Juliet, King Lear, or Midsummer Night's Dream.)
1408398
I detest Shakespeare. I thought of several responses, but they were all embarrassingly intemperate. I'm sorry... I think it's safest for me to just not answer that question.
1408985 That's very interesting, because you are an analytical person like me. I think Shakespeare stuns susceptible people with his style, but his stories are not very good.
Although we have a list of people we call great authors, there is in fact no agreement about who is a great author. Other great authors will often say that they can't read William Faulkner, or James Joyce, or F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Except Shakespeare. Everybody loves Shakespeare. Everyone says that he's the greatest writer who ever lived. This strange, anomalous unanimity proves that something funny is going on.
Literary criticism and values in Western literature have been shaped by the unspoken requirement that any approach to literature must judge Shakespeare's plays to be marvelous. I suspect this requirement is partly responsible for the fetishism of style and pretty words over content. Shakespeare was a master poet, and when he had something to say, he would say it in a way that you would damn well remember.
But he rarely had anything to say. Most of his characters were flat caricatures. The interesting ones were either supporting characters, like Puck or Iago, or a mystery to their creator, like Hamlet. Shakespeare had a very narrow sense of humor — not one line in all of Shakespeare has ever made me laugh. There's no reason anybody should ever perform any of Shakespeare's comedies ever again. They are not funny. His plots are usually silly comedies that rely on outrageous coincidences, propaganda for the ruling royal house, or morality plays like King Lear. (And don't even get me started on Romeo & Juliet.) The endings are weak; they don't summarize, focus attention, or cast new light on anything; they just wrap everything up as quickly as possible. Often they march an entirely new set of characters on stage, so that the ending lacks all drama, as it is enacted by characters you don't care about.
But he blows everyone away with his style. (It's ironic, since those same people who praise Shakespeare's style will not let anyone publish anything written with as much stylistic flair.) His stories are full of sound and fury, but signify nothing. I haven't read Merchant of Venice, or some of the other ones that sound like they might be good. Macbeth is okay. The only one I really like is Julius Caesar. That's because Brutus is an honorable man, and does the right thing, and it gets him killed, and the evil schemer becomes Emperor of Rome. That's deep. That's tragedy. Tragedy shows a sympathetic character destroying themselves, and proves to you that they had no other choice. Shakespeare's "tragedies", except for Julius Caesar, don't. MacBeth is marginally sympathetic, but most of his tragic heroes are simply idiots, like King Lear, Romeo, or Othello.
1409124
Wiser men than I have said that hatred is a kind of love, for if you truly see nothing worthy about a thing you will leave it behind entirely. So by contrast, if you hate something and are drawn to it, you are investing just as much of your heart into it as if you loved something and were drawn to it.
I do not hate Shakespeare.
I have tried. I have tried to turn my dislike into a caliginious loathing. I have tried to rant and rave and even dissect Shakespeare, but I can't. I haven't read enough of what he wrote to give cogent criticisms. I just can't. I've finished A Midsummer's Night Dream and Romeo and Juliet. I have seen them performed. I have seen a truly dreadful performance of Julius Ceasar, and the actors made it so dreadful that I am under no illusion that I can judge the script from their skills. I have read a few scenes of everything else, and scarce more.
It just turns me away. Unless there is a reward for me to finish a Shakespeare script or a punishment for not finishing it, I will not be able to get through it. My intemperate responses to the material are more a response to the social pressures I have felt to read it than to the material itself, which I find to be the same kind of innocently awful that bad fanfics are. I rarely rant about bad fanfics. I just ignore them.