Dead Ends & Unearthing Resonance
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There are hundreds of books on how to construct a story. While many of these
books dedicate entire chapters on how to begin a story, there’s very little menti
on on
how to end a story. At best, you’ll get a list of terms: words like falling action, resolution,
conclusion, and, my personal favorite, dénouement (a fifty-cent French word meaning
the “untying of the knot” or just “unknotting”). If you’re like me, you’ve probably seen
these words and wondered how to use them effectively in your own stories. Like all art,however, there is no definitive answer, but hopefully we can at least move beyondsimply naming the parts that belong in the end of a story.I would suspect part of the reason why so little focus is invested on endings isbecause few authors can agree on what an ending should accomplish. Even somethingas simple as a good ending should resolve all those conflicts your characters faced is apoint for argument. Sure, genre stories tend to require a satisfying ending, one thattidies up all those loose ends, even if it means burying the remaining stragglers in the
old man’s backyard. (It’s okay; he’s senile anyway.) But if we paddle over to the literary
s
ide of the lake, we quickly find it’s not uncommon to have stories that just stop, leaving
all sorts of issues unresolved, and leaving the readers to tease out the meaning
themselves. Anton Chekhov was notorious for this, believing that the writer’s job wa
sonly to reveal the problem, not resolve it.The good news is that even though the road splits off into different directions,endings still share a common element that most authors will agree on: your endingshould resonate with the reader. So, now that
we have a starting point, let’s build up a
serviceable definition of resonance, which is the intellectual and emotional reaction to astory created by suggestive details, such as symbols and figurative language. Blah, blah,
blah … right?
Let’s look at res
onance another way. When I think of resonance, I think of music.
For me, most of the music I enjoy, I don’t understand. I can pick out some words in thechorus, maybe a line or two here and there, and that’s about it. And you know what? Idon’t care. What
resonates with me are those deep layers that run through the song,which are created by the way the vocals and the instruments blend with andcomplement each other. If I enjoy the song enough, I get goose bumps that last longafter the song is over. In other words, the song resonates with me. When it comes to a
story, in particular the ending, that resonance is not too different. I’m looking for goose
bumps.
When working on your own stories, you’d do well to remember that what
resonates in the story is not the housecleaning of unresolved plot points, but rather theemotional elements, those deep layers, that have been running throughout your story.Think beyond simply resolving character conflict
–
if the story demands it, resolutionshould come naturally anyway
–
but more importantly look at wrapping up thoseemotional elements by asking big questions like: What has the protagonist lost orgained at the end? What do you want your readers to lose or gain?
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