Star Wars (first movie) has a dramatic conclusion -- destruction of the death star. Then what?
They could have stopped there? The last scene could have been Luke back at his farm? There actually was a big ceremony, which wasn't needed to tie up loose ends.
It was an end. Maybe a "look-how-far-we've-come" end, which would probably work well for hero's journey.
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
What made me think of this was my ending for the Holy Grail book. It repeats a scene from the start, only she is different so it runs different. So it shows growth. (Mine was tying up a loose end too.)
That should be a standard trope for showing growth or change, right? I use it a lot. There's lots of variations, like the ending to Forrest Gump (the bus driver).
Maybe that fits episodic structure. It does make for a somewhat satisfying end.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
From starts to ends -- how about middles?
Forrest Gump, at the core, is a documentary drama of the U.S. Postmodern social-cultural era peak and a romance, roughly 1960s through the 1980s, a Baby Boomer generation childhood to adulthood coming of age diary.
The tangible, material, concrete transformation of the narrative is, otherwise non-normative dissociation affect spectrum Gump, unlikely becomes a friend, a family man, a father, educated enough and healthy and well to do, the four traditional life ambitions expected of everyone human, despite all odds against those outcomes. Inspirational.
All along, Gump is a "boyscout," more or less of a fixed moral aptitude throughout, older, no true moral transformation, he does what he believes is morally right from start to end, despite all of Creation's efforts to warp his moral sensibilities. A rigid moral code is a sign of a gamut of dissociative affect conditions.
Throughout, too, Gump's one problematic want is Jenny for his girlfriend. Not an actual full-force, surface motivation, the want, Jenny, tangible and improbable object of his desire, is always part of his dramatic movement. Romance's central dramatic question is will they or won't they. Answered and further matters for the drama afterward.
So tangible and intangible motivations, tangible and intangible stakes risked conflicts, a third space synthesis of a generation's travails against great odds, a complete and unified dramatic action, a frame story with embedded episodes, and apt even if episodic.
The lightness of a white feather is the start and end's symbol, a life lived lightly and purely despite Creation's persistent temptations and vagaries. The school bus is a start and end symbol too, in that life lessons will be learned by each and all according to their moral aptitudes. Not philosophic's moral law assertion, rather, an individual's energetic moral truth discovery.
[ February 22, 2019, 03:26 AM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by Meredith (Member # 8368) on :
Most stories need a denouement, the purpose of which is to set the characters back down in a place of--at least temporary--stability. It ties up any remaining loose ends. (R2D2 is repaired.) Hopefully reiterates the theme. Leaves the readers/audience with the last view of the characters/world that hopefully resonates--and makes them want more or hints that there may be more.
Ending Star Wars with the explosion of the Death Star would have been dramatic, but it would likely have left many of the audience dissatisfied. Thus the final two brief scenes.
Here is a good discussion of the resolution of a story--including Star Wars.
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
Since that site mentions Ender's Game . . . Obviously, we needed to find out what was really happening, that the buggers were defeated for real.
But I will claim there is one more essential item in Card's ending/resolution/epilogue/denouement. We needed the scene where, even though he pushed them and used them, they still liked him. That doesn't get mentioned on the website.
I don't know if you can see that. I might sound crazy. But to me, that was essential.
She says a lot of things an ending accomplishes, and I'm not sure that's one of them. In a way, it's showing how things didn't change.
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
Since that site mentions Pride and Prejudice . . . I noticed in my book, that I essentially asked myself, "Are there any more good scenes here?" I tend to be episodic. That was my only goal.
So, that's how I saw her telling her mother about her engagement -- another interesting scene.
I assume the thrilling conclusion is Darcy asking her if she will marry him. Note that it was not in the book. Not a good scene, I think. Too obvious.
Posted by Jay Greenstein (Member # 10615) on :
quote:They could have stopped there? The last scene could have been Luke back at his farm?
In general, what you're discussing is the denouement, the tying up of loose ends. It's also the sigh or relief after victory to ease the emotional high gently into warm satisfaction. It's where the hero learns the prize for being steadfast and deserving of poetic justice. The end of meaningful story comes at the climax, when our hero turns certain defeat into victory through the use of the hero's only true and dependable weapon—what George of the Jungle defined as "dumb luck."
We leave the story with the traditional, "And they all lived happily ever after." They don't, of course, as everyone knows, which is why we write a second story set in the same universe. Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Like most or all narratives, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game denouements do what denouements do, are meant to do; that is, portray the outcomes of main dramatic complications, the outcomes of want-problem motivation forces.
What does Elizabeth want? What does Ender Wiggins want? When do they know what they want? Who wants what is given for each novel. Where do they know want? Why do they want? How? How do they strive to satisfy their wants? Who, when, where context; what, why, how texture, the first grammar school composition criteria lesson.
Elizabeth wants a romantic match suitable to her station and her romantic sensibilities, a Gilded age social stratification and social ambition satire.
Ender's want is for peaceful coexistence, though he would defend himself aggressively regardless of superior opposition and unconditionally triumph due to superior and ruthless tactics, even if manipulated to do so. In the end, her realizes utter victory and utter defeat are as unworthy as confrontation itself is.
Ender is, what, ten years old then? Sure, as if any ten-year-old could become that emotionally and morally mature due to the circumstances. Persistent brathood is far more real-world likely, like Macaulay Culkin, the Brat Pack, and similar too young to power, fame, and wealth accomplishments . . . Survivorship bias realized as self-ordained to godhood. However, Card somewhat defuses those possibles through Ender's self-guilt for species genocide and amends he makes for it and becomes widely loathed for them in later Speaker for the Dead installments.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
I submit that it is better to leave some things to the readers' imagination because what readers can imagine is often much better than anything a writer can write. The full outcome is often one of those "things" and hints about it are better than full disclosure.
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
quote:Originally posted by Meredith: Here is a good discussion of the resolution of a story.
Let me take this article slowly. She writes, among other things,
quote: And, if you’ve done your job right, they’re likely to want this extra scene for no other reason than the opportunity to spend just a little more time with these characters they’ve grown to love.
We know that readers often want to spend a lot more time with characters they love. Or I think like or find interesting. So this does not explain the advice to keep the ending/epilog/denouement short.
This could explain why readers keep reading in the middle of the book; it would also be a hook, right?
Should this be turned around? Maybe one value of a good ending can be to stop the reader from thinking too much about the character. We want to show that life has gone back to normal, that the character doesn't have additional problems.
For example, Ender finds a new job and leaves the chaos on Earth.
Posted by Meredith (Member # 8368) on :
Like I said above, we leave the character in a place of at least temporary stability. It can be the end of the story we write, but it's not the end of the character's story. (Unless we kill the character at the end, but I don't recommend that for most stories.) It's the place where the reader/audience can breathe out. It's sometimes the place where the hero, having succeeded in his quest, gets his reward. Or where our sense of justice is served by learning the fate of the antagonist. Or . . . well, any number of things.
I can think of several stories for which my mind has continued to make up the continuing story from where the author left off. One reason why you might want to create that is if you're planning a sequel. Otherwise, maybe it's just good to feel that your characters are continuing on in someone else's imagination. Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
quote:Originally posted by Meredith: Or . . . well, any number of things.
But wouldn't it be nice to have a short list of what an ending should/could do? It could serve as a checklist for forgetful writers. It would let us debate their value, and talk about how to accomplish them.
If there is a sequel, a strategy is leaving the reader wanting more. In other words, dissatisfied. Do we agree that a strategy for a stand-alone book should be to leave the reader satisfied? That fits your idea to "leave the character in a place of at least temporary stability."
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
quote:Originally posted by Meredith: Or where our sense of justice is served by learning the fate of the antagonist.
Card has the idea of a contract with the reader. Perhaps . . . Well, what is the contract?
Maybe the reader thinks that part of the contract is learning that the antagonist has been punished for his/her evils. I certainly want to read that.
Star Wars seemed unconcerned with the geopolitical consequences of the destruction of the death star. Card didn't have that choice. When he was done with his interesting story of Locke and Demosthenes, Card had brought up the geopolitical consequences. Even if that was unintentional, I think the contract with the reader demanded that Card at least address it.
Third example. The Holy Grail appears in her attic, it causes problems and issues, and then it disappears. If you read extrinsic's comments, I think he wants me to address WHY it appeared. I agree, I think that's a fair request. My ending addresses that issue.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
From a near infinite number of possibles, from the many, a writer chooses extant selections reinvented or stet (let stand as is), or at least chooses fresh innovations thereof, or altogether new inventions and experiments. For each discrete facet and to overall a whole.
Self imposed guidelines and "rules," conscientious self-definition -- is the -- The hallmark of an artist.
Workshop and writer-reader-critiquer discussion then would be does this and that work for at least an ample-sized niche target audience, or not?
However, one unequivocal prose fundamental is crucial: readers' recreation -- intellectual, sensational, emotional, moral, spiritual, and perhaps vocational entertainments.
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
extrinsic, you are dangerously close to saying "Write the best ending you can." I think that's great advice, but in a way it's no advice.
And the author doesn't have time to think of an infinite number of possibilities, the author is probably going to write one ending and then edit and fix. Advice that impairs creativity wouldn't be very good. But if we could give some suggestions, that would help, right?
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
quote: most books need an extra scene or two to tie off any leftover loose ends
From that website. I have started to suspect metaphors in nonfiction. Does anyone know what it means?
From one website: " to complete the parts of something that have not been completed" So a completed book could be incomplete? The book is not completed until it is completed?
"Something" is an awkward pronoun, right?
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Artists are a contrary species. If an artist struggles and seeks satisfaction of the struggle, advise do this, an artist would use the advice for stepstones to another satisfaction method, choice, and decision altogether. I do and all the artists with which I've discussed same.
An analysis methodology backtracks to a limited set of first principles then works forward through a maze of possibles that become exponential large -- consciously, subconsciously, and nonconsciously. Even a brief narrative entails untold millions of split-second decisions. Otherwise, all an advisor might offer is generic generalizations and illustrations from extant content.
Hence, give an agonist want motivation and throw problem motivation at the want along the satisfaction effort journey, until a bittersweet outcome end satisfies the pertinent complication, or an accommodation or "closure" comes to pass.
Otherwise, unleash creative experiment mayhem and see what works, what doesn't work for a given audience target. What, compose a written prose Jackson Pollock painting that deliberately avoids all convention, and avoids any message or moral, message and moral itself, and challenges and questions all presupposed notions of creative propriety? Okay!
I've strove for suggestions to the young artist who wants for guidance. The artist is soon overwhelmed by the untold infinity of possibles. The old standby platitude of read, read wide, read deep, is still the clearest and strongest advice, albeit sprinkled with a bucketful of competent craft texts, and attended by practice and creative exercise. As our Meredith cites, It [story craft skill development] is a marathon, not a sprint.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
Consider, if you will, the ending to GONE WITH THE WIND.
Posted by Jay Greenstein (Member # 10615) on :
________________________________________
quote:But wouldn't it be nice to have a short list of what an ending should/could do? It could serve as a checklist for forgetful writers.
Ask, and you shall receive. From…what else? Techniques of the Selling Writer: - - - - - - Face one fact; The moment your story question is answered, your story itself ends, for all practical purposes.
Therefore, don’t hold your reader any further past that point than need be. Stall a bit too long, and you may lose him. Your job from here on out is to say good-by, in as few words and pages as you can.
At the same time, you don’t dare move too fast, or you’ll lose emotional impact.
Ordinarily, a few pages—certainly not more than a chapter, even in a novel—of denouement should be enough. Long explanations will prove unnecessary, if you’ve snipped off subordinate threads early, in accordance with instructions.
So, work for a short concluding section.
On the other hand, be careful not to leave characters unaccounted for or loose ends dangling.
How do you avoid such?
You go back over your work. Painstakingly. Check plot development, point by point. Ask yourself if there are questions that you’ve left unanswered.
Often, too, a reading by someone who doesn’t know the story will bring holes and loose thinking to your attention.
Be careful, though. What you need is honest appraisal, not flattery or half-baked critical opinion.
Finally . . .
(6) You focus fulfillment into a punch line.
How do you write a proper punch line?
You strive for euphoria.
Euphoria may be defined as a sense of well-being and buoyancy. It’s the feeling that follows the draining off of the last vestiges of reader tension.
To create it, you hunt for a final paragraph, and a line to end it, that will epitomize your character’s or characters’ fulfillment. Since a story is the record of how somebody deals with danger, this final paragraph and line should make clear to your reader that said danger-and the tension and trouble it created—are at an end, so far as the characters are concerned. Completely.
On the other hand, “. , . and so they lived happily ever after” isn’t quite enough. Life goes on, and your reader knows it. Therefore, you need to include some indication that your characters still have a future. Other troubles may come. In fact, assorted woes may be hanging fire right now. But they’re not yet on stage, so your people can still glow happily in the relief and release of this moment’s triumph.
The actual writing of a good punch line can be a nerve-racking, floor-pacing, time-consuming job. The most common approach, perhaps, is simply to jot down each and every idea that comes to mind, no matter how remote. Then, settle for whichever one seems best.
Beyond this, here are three tricks which may help:
(a) Try, earlier, to establish the idea that a particular event, a significant detail, represents fulfillment to your hero.
Throughout the story, Hero’s been striving to make time with Girl, without success. You conclude, “This time, she was kissing him.”
Conceivably, your reader may decide that Hero has indeed attained his goal.
(b) A comic or apparently pointless line may turn the trick—if only because it demonstrates conclusively that trouble and tension are over.
Exhibit A; “Words came through the tears: ‘Steve . . , oh, Steve, you’re home!’”
“The steeldust kept on grazing.”
Actually, no one gives a hoot about the horse. It’s just that by shifting attention to him, we confirm that danger is dissipated.
(c) Ignoring the present for the future may carry the implication that all’s ended and all’s well.
“Seth cut in: ‘I’ll take care of it soon’s I can, Ed. But right now, Helen and me need to run over to Red Rock. We got some things to take care of.’”
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Exceptions to the above abound. Samuel Becket's Waiting for Godot is a brief enough read and stellar example of a narrative that defies presupposed notions of dramatic propriety. (Illustrated script, Napa Valley College hosted PDF.)
The narrative does establish motivations and stakes and develops tension throughout. However, audiences strongly divide on the play's recreational merits and whether the payoff outcome warrants their resource expenditures.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
Jay Greenstein, is all of that a quote from Techniques of the Selling Writer? It's way more than 13 lines.
Can you edit it to summarize or give bullet points, and just cite the pages, or something, please?
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
quote:Originally posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury: Consider, if you will, the ending to GONE WITH THE WIND.
I admit I did not have time to read this book.
What should I look at? If the thrilling conclusion is "Frankly, I don't give a damn", I'm thinking she should have quit there. It ended the story. She got her just rewards. There were no loose ends.
The next page or so is an attempt at a happier ending? That didn't seem appropriate. I didn't understand her claim that she would get Rhett back. Was that supposed to suggest her future? Show that she was deluded?
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jay Greenstein: ________________________________________
[QUOTE] - - - - - - Face one fact; The moment your story question is answered, your story itself ends, for all practical purposes.
In Jurrasic Park, the computers are down, the electricity is gone, the vicious dinosaurs are trying to eat them, and then ... Everything gets solved. The computer problem is solved, the electricy comes on, and the velociraptors are somehow caged.
In the very next sentence they remember another problem. Suspense! Tension! And there's more issues after that.
In my romance, they have agreed to spend their lives together; in the final action scene, they save congress from terrorists. Then I deal with PTSD.
Did you mean to say, "Your story ends when all the problems are solved." That works well, though I would add that all the contracts should be met.
Posted by Meredith (Member # 8368) on :
quote:Originally posted by EmmaSohan:
quote:Originally posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury: Consider, if you will, the ending to GONE WITH THE WIND.
I admit I did not have time to read this book.
What should I look at? If the thrilling conclusion is "Frankly, I don't give a damn", I'm thinking she should have quit there. It ended the story. She got her just rewards. There were no loose ends.
The next page or so is an attempt at a happier ending? That didn't seem appropriate. I didn't understand her claim that she would get Rhett back. Was that supposed to suggest her future? Show that she was deluded?
That ending comes straight out of Scarlet's character. If you haven't read the book, you won't get it. Scarlet will never admit defeat. And so far, by hook or by crook, she's gotten what she wanted (getting one of her three husbands killed in the process). It's left up to the reader to decide if she'll succeed this time. Someone, sometime back, did try to write a sequel. Probably a bad idea.
But that ending is Scarlet all over. It's the same woman who stood up in the depths of the Civil War and said "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again." And made it stick, that time.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Though many even published narratives fall short of full and final tension relief realization, some aptly and artfully, some shy of full realization, "conflict resolution" is only one of several distinct full outcome satisfaction types. "Outcome" is the operative word for ends, outcome of a main dramatic complication and a central conflict satisfied, that is.
The Jurassic Park franchise portrays Nature gone awry due to human influence. Little different, really, from Alfred Hitchcock's seminal and signal The Birds. Hitchcock's coin "MacGuffin" illustrates that per se extrinsic motifs are subject to variety. Birds, rodents, insects, arachnids, reptiles, worms, plants, amoeba, bacteria, viruses, etc., some natural world life gone awry due to human influence.
Jurassic Park is also an exact match for our host Orson Scott Card's milieu emphasis facet of his M.I.C.E. quotient. Primary milieu emphasis entails how a nonnormal, nonroutine circumstance set drives a tangible action movement. Enter the nonroutine milieu, cope with the strangeness and hazards, come to an accommodation with the milieu at least, depart the milieu to a routine sanctuary. The complication-conflict incitement, journey, and destination are pre-predicated from the milieu's strangeness and perhaps perils.
Though milieu's mass culture and vague appreciation of its substance reigns across Creation, for prose, the exact substance is part of setting's circumstances' situation. Setting: time (when), place (where) contexts; and situation texture (what, why, and how) textures, especially a society's culture situation influences, for example, a society dominated and controlled, governed by a rigid theocracy, etc.
Card's event emphasis situation links to setting and milieu (also what, why, and how texture; plus, who, when, and where context), and character personas (who context) links, too. Idea, that too links through Card's M.I.C.E. quotient emphasis.
For Jurassic Park, a central and tangible idea is reintroduction of dinosaur life for entertainment purposes. What could go wrong? Uh, most anything and everything. Otherwise, the characters' emphasis are of stock archetypes' personalities, behaviors, and moral aptitudes of everyday human culture. M foremost, E secondmost, I third, C last, though nonetheless emphasized of an apt degree.
Likewise, emotional-moral subtexts attend. Idea: does humanity realize the hubris and perils of playing at god, restoration of dinosaur life for recreation? Pride goeth before a fall. Greed is strongly involved, too. Emotion subtexts include awe and wonder, rapport, empathy, sympathy, pity, and fear, delight, and remorse. Vices and virtues are emotions as well as moral aptitudes.
Gone with the Wind is fraught with emotional-moral context and texture subtexts.
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
quote:Originally posted by Meredith:
quote:Originally posted by EmmaSohan:
quote:Originally posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury: Consider, if you will, the ending to GONE WITH THE WIND.
I admit I did not have time to read this book.
What should I look at? If the thrilling conclusion is "Frankly, I don't give a damn", I'm thinking she should have quit there. It ended the story. She got her just rewards. There were no loose ends.
The next page or so is an attempt at a happier ending? That didn't seem appropriate. I didn't understand her claim that she would get Rhett back. Was that supposed to suggest her future? Show that she was deluded?
That ending comes straight out of Scarlet's character. If you haven't read the book, you won't get it. Scarlet will never admit defeat. And so far, by hook or by crook, she's gotten what she wanted (getting one of her three husbands killed in the process). It's left up to the reader to decide if she'll succeed this time. Someone, sometime back, did try to write a sequel. Probably a bad idea.
But that ending is Scarlet all over. It's the same woman who stood up in the depths of the Civil War and said "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again." And made it stick, that time.
Thanks. That helps. But . . . in that final chapter, or just before, doesn't she realize that she hasn't gotten anything of what she really wanted? Like, she got Ashley, but she realizes he wouldn't have made her happy?
So then the last page is just a continuation of her using force of will and energy to get things she really doesn't want? And I'm guessing she hurts people along the way? That could be a really interesting ending, totally different from the ending I was seeing (trying to avoid depressingness).
Anyway, I guess the question isn't about what would be a good ending for someone who hasn't read the book. The reader might think she's been broken or changed by events, and the ending shows that she's unchanged and still the same person.
Posted by Jay Greenstein (Member # 10615) on :
quote:Did you mean to say, "Your story ends when all the problems are solved."
I can't speak for Mr. Swain. And since he's passed on... But he didn't say that.
I do have to comment, though, that finding an example or two that doesn't follow convention hardly disproves the rule. And that fact that you or I don't follow it only counts if the story sells.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
If I remember correctly, the phrase "Tomorrow is another day" is the closing line to GONE WITH THE WIND, and indicates a fairly open-ended story.
A successful story doesn't need to be completely resolved with all questions answered and everything tied up neatly in a bow.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Consider that Gone with the Wind is an unintended and nonconscious allegory for the South's Dixie and "Snowflake" culture.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Keep in mind, too, that the book of "Gone With the Wind" varies considerably from the movie of "Gone With the Wind."
Posted by Jay Greenstein (Member # 10615) on :
quote:, is all of that a quote from Techniques of the Selling Writer? It's way more than 13 lines.
The quote was a fair usage excerpt that answered the question Emma asked on having a guide to endings.
quote: If I remember correctly, the phrase "Tomorrow is another day" is the closing line to GONE WITH THE WIND, and indicates a fairly open-ended story.
You're right in that it's open ended, but all the loose endings in that story have been tied off, and that line is the punch-line that Swain talked about in the excerpt.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Fair Use is not a blanket carte blanche for copyrighted materials use. Ms. Dalton Woodbury asks the question on both responsible Fair Use principles and Hatrack's rule that no more than thirteen lines of copyrighted content may be cited at Hatrack. Short poetry, maybe "flash" prose, and song lyrics, none posted at all. Titles and creators' names permitted. Those composition types are so brief that a substantial cited portion of a whole is inevitable.
For education and otherwise nonprofit uses, for criticism and analysis Fair Use, the four tests of Fair Use are below.
The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
The nature of the copyrighted work;
The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. ("Fair use," Wikipedia)
Number three above: "amount and substantiality of a portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole," plus the amount of the copyrighted work in relation to the amount of the composition in which it is used apply therein above. Excess use portion to a work which cites the content constitutes idea plagiarism and copyright piracy, according to grammar handbooks and style manuals, and the law; say, no more than a tenth copyrighted material use to a composition's content amount, plus the matters of substantiality, faithful citation, and aptness of application.
Responsible Fair Use of both verbatim and paraphrased content also provides full attribution of full creator name(s) as given on the works cited, full title of the work, publication attribution if a periodical, and page numbers of content cited, if any, at least. Further, if cited from a revised edition text, also provide publication date and publisher name and location. Online content attribution varies somewhat, especially if under a creative commons license type.
Fair Use is as much a privilege, not a free-for-all, as a responsibility: to content creators and ourselves, who would object to piracy of our creations, to readers, if so inclined, so they may reference the original material, to Hatrack and our host Orson Scott Card and Ms Dalton Woodbury, to society at large for responsible best examples set, and to the law; plus, responsible attribution and Fair Use evince ethos appeals, credibility appeals, that is.
[ March 02, 2019, 01:36 AM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by Jay Greenstein (Member # 10615) on :
quote:Fair Use is not a blanket carte blanhce for copyrighted materials use.
1. The words I posed were in direct response to a question that was asked, and are both relevant to it, and directed to Emma. If you disagree with Mr. Swain's views, you may and should present your viewpoint. Literary discussion is why we're here.
2. This is not, and has not been a thread discussing fair usage. If you wish to discuss that subject, open a thread for that purpose.
3. Point number two, education, covers the posting.
4. We have a very capable moderator, one capable of speaking for herself.
Posted by walexander (Member # 9151) on :
I'm always surprised when I remember my password.
quote:Anyway, I guess the question isn't about what would be a good ending for someone who hasn't read the book. The reader might think she's been broken or changed by events, and the ending shows that she's unchanged and still the same person.
That's one of the tricks to being a good writer and a good ending Emma. You want people to be discussing their feelings and views about how a story ends. If it's cut and dry whats to talk about? A reader might even feel cheated because it was to predictable.
There's a certain amount of truth in the fact that most people don't learn from their mistakes. Its a fact that leaves your stomach feeling a little queasy. It's the reason why it's difficult to escape ones past. Change is extremely difficult. Often a great ending leaves the reader questioning how the story reflects their own life.
food for thought,
W.
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
I am thinking this:
During a story, we set hooks. They keep the reader reading, to find out what happens.
If there is a sequel, the author leaves a hook so the reader wants to read more. If there is no sequel, the basic goal of an ending is to unset the hooks so the reader can end the book satisfied.
After the dramatic conclusion, removing the largest hook, there can be smaller hooks remaining, or the conclusion can create new issues that need to be resolved.
The author also fulfills the unwritten contract with the reader.
So that doesn't answer all the questions a reader could think of; it does answer the questions on their mind.
Obviously, writers can do more. They can try to add solace or hope to an unhappy ending. (That annoys me.) They can tell what happens to the characters in the future.
If there is a logical start and end giving a story coherence, the author can take us to the logical end.
And, apparently, it's an expected part of the story.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
All of prose craft entails a near infinite set of considerations. Starts, middles, ends, as much as any of the craft's topics, can be predicated upon broad generalizations only. Beyond generalizations, a robust craft analysis practice narrows a topic to a rigorous focus.
The analysis practice entails a focused topic development process, a derived approach and opinion position development, a limited few sample narratives which contain best examples of the focal topic, and verbatim and paraphrased citations from descriptive reference texts that as well explicate the topic, mindful to lend one or another further contribution to the knowledge base on point.
An "endings" topic is too broad for such, again, other than for broad generalizations. Further topic focus might select, say, a "conflict resolution" type structure and its start, middle, and end conventions and exceptions, and locate narratives and analytical texts that exemplify the type. Further focus may yet be wanted, too, say, of a marketplace category, a literary movement, a school of thought, and an analytical approach.
Topic focus, too, is a grammar and craft principle, and as well entails a clear and strong claim assertion for overall focus and unity facets.
A claim assertion for a conflict resolution type narrative craft essay could be the structure accounts for a major fraction of all prose narratives, say, about seven out of ten across the literary opus and wants strong craft insights.
A next portion after the claim is a rationale for the claim, that is, for example, due to the type's commonness, popularity of the type wants further analysis for further enhancement and advancement of the arts, and that the type's applications have fallen on hard times and convenient habit shortfalls.
Next, support for the claim might identify three or so of the more popular and acclaimed examples published of late, and explicate their manners of craft and method usage, and shortfalls therein.
Next, anticipate objections to the main claim, that is, the type is the most popular and common and too often overly trite and outworn anymore, and wants new appreciation of the type's conventions, exceptions, methods, setups, movements, and outcomes. Another objection might be that the type is common, therefore, less of a challenge, of less appeal, and too often formulaic.
Next, rebut the objections, explain why the objections might be valid though myopic, that is, many examples of the type are extant, imitate real-life scenarios, many emerge and appeal, yet too often in inept hands fall short of best methods appeal.
Next and last, give a conclusive end to the claim's argument, like that the type is common because of inherent appeals and popularity, and that a furtherance of the type's craft methods strives for inclusion of innovative practices, re: enhanced, vivid, lively, lustrous reality imitation show emphasis, strong social commentary and insight, and personal, intimate, close, limited narrative point of view methods (pre-positioned in the claim, rationale, samples and support, objection, and rebuttal sections). And the conclusion then ties all the essay's parts into a reassertion of the initial claim, here, say, that explication of recent methods and innovations recommend themselves to the conflict resolution type's appeals.
This process above may lead to publication in journals which specialize in craft analysis, of which many more are extant than might be thought. The market pay rate ranges from none to twenty-five cents per word for craft essays of five thousand and up to eight thousand words, $2,000, more for culture stalwarts of especial insights. Also, several membership associations promote critical publication culture.
[ March 03, 2019, 05:59 AM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by EmmaSohan (Member # 10917) on :
I can get paid for writing about writing? Tell me more?
To be clear, I write for writers. I can write the way you suggest too, but I doubt writers give a d*** about, for example, description and theories of synecdoche which are not useful to writing.
All they care about, I ASSUME, is whether or not the advice works. Which should be the only test, but it assumes a sense of what is good writing and what is not.
So, I made the checklist I looked for, and it started with unsetting the hooks. This presumes a goal of leaving the reader satisfied, which is plausible. I tried to test it against the data, and it's just a hypothesis for now, but the logic is inexorable.
And of course doesn't work for many horror stories, but there the point is to leave the reader upset.
I want to think more closely about what you said.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Writing about writing income across the U.S. averages low five to low six figures per capita per annum. I follow journals, publishers, and associations that further those publications, some periodical, some book texts.
What writers want from such analytical texts varies from detailed, focused analysis of craft, method, message, moral, to the fine arts of expression methodology, and who is whom. So who, when, where context; what, why, and how texture.
Such analyses also situate by skill status, as it were, a spectrum from aspirant to beginner to intermediate to advanced, from wannabe to hobbyist to inexperienced to experienced to debut to published to accomplished to career oriented.
Advice about writing locates in the main among the more or less mechanical how-to texts that assert process methods and structural basics. Otherwise, the main forte is texts that describe and analyze focal aesthetics. Of course, more than a few texts jumble the two poles together.
The former, how-tos, are apt for the beginner creative writer; the middle one above, descriptive texts, for the advanced writer; the latter, of more than one pole, for the intermediate writer.
A constant challenge question on my mind is how best practice to guide beginners' story craft skill inception and growth. The routine method anymore is free-for-all trial and error and workshop review: write and submit for consideration a brief length, complete narrative of roughly two thousand words. Peer-skill reviewers and focus group workshoppers then constructively deconstruct the work based upon craft and method topics known to them and as well personal sentiments and tastes. Catch as catch can, haphazard happenstance, and self-selection reign.
Yet a more productive development method must be extant and was for three past eras: classic Greek, classic Roman, and Renaissance literary schools of thought. Mid twentieth century social-cultural thought upheavals upset the disciplines those eras promulgated through to the present and supplanted those with creative free reign and shock jockery at the expense of creative discipline. To each and all who would succeed, though, wanted discipline develops anyway, however, more so helter-skelter than by design.
Both discipline and creativity and more, inspiration, for one, social-moral insight, too, are wanted for expression synergy: a total of a whole is greater than a sum of its parts. The latter indicates how a narrative is more than its words, more expressed with less.
So a productive beginner creative writer-learner process is read, study, analyze, inspire, and apply a focal topic to practice. What focal topics first? There's the friction rub of it all. An emotional-moral movement arc of motivations and stakes and tone (emotional and moral subtexts, complication antagonism, conflict causation, and attitude tension).
For intermediate and advanced creative writer edification, further narrowed and focused topics present, subtext dimensions, for instance.
If "endings" is the focal topic, at whatever writer skill level, then a survey of several ending types and forms examines extant narratives of a focal type and studies descriptive texts of same based upon outset, middle, and outcome typology, conflict resolution, for example, or puzzle (mystery), etc., and applies those revelations to practice. Innovations and fresh insights may arise therefrom, too. The past few centuries' craft emphasis and insistence for conflict could do with more appreciation for natural complication and tone attendants, for example.
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