Craft: What advice would you have for emerging authors about writing satisfying edndings? Tips? Traps?
I'm going to add my voice in agreement with one of the points Gabriel made on Tuesday and then make a couple of my own.
Park your Pride
If there's a phrase I dislike more than "transcending the genre" - usually written by reviewers and so, so, so patronising: as if there's an amount of literary quality that makes a crime novel not a crime novel anymore! - then it's the phrase, usually said by writers feeling defensive (with good reason), "problematising the genre".
As far as I can tell, "problematising the genre" means . . .
Okay, I'm going to write this politely and then a bit more robustly.
Ahem.
1. deliberately not adhering to the conventions of the genre, because you believe that's an improvemnent.
2. Flaking out on the tough bit and patting yourself on the back while you're at it.
I would say to an aspiring, beginning, or emerging writer: if you don't want to plant clues and resolve a puzzle maybe don't write a mystery.
You can't please all of the people ...
One big decision to make when you're ending your book is whether your story will fade to black, leaving the reader to follow through the repercussions of the big reveal, or whether you're going to have a coda, showing the lives of the characters after the end of the plot. I kind of love codas, when I'm reading, but I recognise my tendency to tie everything up in a pink gingham ribbon when I write them.
Some readers would be happy with that and some would feel that I'd spoiled the book. I've got a partial solution, though. If I've left characters with their post-plot lives undescribed, I can scratch my itch by inviting readers - in the bookclub questions - to discuss what they think happened next. It sounds unlikel, but it works.
Cascade or Crescendo?
Getting a bit technical now. I'm going to assume that anyone writing a mystery has more than one clue and more than one red herring, meaning that there are multiple revelations to come out at the end. This, in turn, means you need to decide how to order them.
It goes without saying that having the big jaw-dropper first and then carrying on with smaller and smaller points - a cascade, I call it - isn't very satisfying.
But what if you do it the other way - a crescendo - and the biggest reveal is also the one most readers have twigged to? You don't want to do a drumroll, only to have your reader say "Well, duh". I get the willies just thinking about it.
So I'm going to make a case for having a small-ish but really obscure clue or red herring (they're the same thing but that's another blog post) - one that no one will have guessed; in fact, one that readers will have forgotten about - and letting that be the last reveal. I call this the crescendo plus kicker. Love 'em, as a writer and a reader. (Although see the section above on pleasing people.)
And now . . . I'm returning to the last read-through of Dandy Gilver No.16, before I hit "send" tomorrow. I hope. Despite the fact that I've got an overnight flight to Malice tonight. I've read 7 of 18 chapters and they're pretty clean so far, with no big blunders and only a few ghosts left over from earlier drafts. I tell you, when I get to the end of the coda - there's a coda - after one HELL of a kicker, even if I say so myself, I'm expecting to be giddy. Usually, I would print it out and dance around an empty room. Tomorrow, I'm going to go downstairs to the bar and hug some of my dearest friends.
Cx
No comments:
Post a Comment