Scrapbook: Endings

Endings: So important, especially in books or films. Are you the sort of person who likes a happy ending, or do you prefer the cliff-hanging suspense of a series?

This is the ending of my Scrapbook feature for ETp after a number of years (not quite sure how many, but they are probably engraved on our esteemed editor’s brain!). I have hugely enjoyed finding oddments for it, and also seeing the final production after polishing, embellishing and generally prettifying! So, many thanks, Helena, for your support and input!

Endings to jokes

I’ve mentioned books and films, but endings are also vital to that great staple of the Scrapbook: jokes! This is particularly true of the very long and drawn-out ones, usually described as ‘shaggy dog stories’. I’m not quite sure of the origin of this name, and the internet offers up various equally unconvincing suggestions, some involving dogs (shaggy or otherwise), some not. The essence of a shaggy dog story is that the teller includes a whole raft of inconsequential details and irrelevant incidents, and the whole long-winded anecdote ultimately ends in an anticlimactic punchline or a pun. I quite like the jokes of whatever length where the ending is completely unexpected:

A man is flying in a hot-air balloon and realises he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man below. He then lowers the balloon some more and shouts, ‘Excuse me! Can you tell me where I am?’

The man below says, ‘Yes, you’re in a hot-air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field.’

‘You must be an engineer,’ says the balloonist.

‘I am,’ replies the man, ‘but how did you know?’

‘Well,’ says the balloonist, ‘everything you have told me is technically correct, but it’s no use to anyone.’

The man below says, ‘You must be in management.’

‘I am,’ replies the balloonist, ‘but how did you know?’

‘Well,’ says the man, ‘you don’t know where you are or where you’re going, but you expect me to be able to help. You’re in the same position you were before we met, but now it’s my fault. So far, your entire approach to solving problems has been berating me and letting out hot air.’

A sailor meets a pirate in a bar and their conversation turns to their adventures at sea. The sailor notes that the pirate has a wooden leg, a hook instead of a right hand, and an eye patch. ‘So, how did you end up with the wooden leg?’ he says.

‘Aaar,’ the pirate replies, ‘we were in a storm at sea, and I was swept overboard into a school of sharks. Just as my men were pulling me out, a shark bit my leg off.’

‘Wow!’ says the sailor. ‘What about your hook?’

‘Aaar,’ replies the pirate, ‘we were boarding an enemy ship and were fighting the other sailors with swords. One of the enemy sailors cut my hand off.’

‘Incredible!’ remarks the sailor. ‘And how did you get the eye patch?’

‘A seagull dropping fell into my eye,’ replies the pirate.

The sailor looks at him incredulously. ‘You lost your eye to a seagull dropping?’ he says.

‘Aaar,’ says the ‘pirate’?, ‘it was my first day with the hook.’

The phone rings in an office.

Boss: Why don’t you pick that up?

Employee: I always answer on the third ring – it makes me seem cooler.

Boss: PICK IT UP!

Employee: [rolling eyes] Fine.

[picks up phone] 911, what’s your emergency?

I remember when I was a child, I could go to the shop with £1 and come home with three bags of crisps, a bag of sweets, a fizzy drink and some chocolate bars. Nowadays, they have cameras everywhere.

I can’t believe people don’t eat the crust: it’s part of the food, and it’s fantastic, even if it doesn’t taste the same as the rest of the watermelon.

Musical endings

Some endings are a very long time coming. Composer John Cage has created a work for (automated) pipe organ that began on the composer’s 89th birthday on the 5th September 2001 and is scheduled to finish in 639 years – that is, in 2640! The title is Organ2/ASLSP (As SLow aS Possible). The current chord, which is being played in the German city of Halberstadt, started on 5th September 2020 and isn’t due to change until 5th February 2022, which gives you an idea of the speed of the composition.

It makes the 29 bars of C major chords that Beethoven used to wind up the last movement of his 5th Symphony look positively perfunctory! Although, perhaps, that description would be more fittingly applied to Michael Wolters’s Spring Symphony, which, complete with four discrete movements, lasts just 17 seconds from start to finish …

Quotable endings

‘New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.’ Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher

‘There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.’ Frank Herbert, American writer

‘The universe gives us a reminder of how beautiful endings can be when the sun sets and the moon rises.’ Taylor Ashley, American writer

‘The end never comes when you think it will. It’s always ten steps past the worst moment, then a weird turn to the left.’ Lena Dunham, American actress

Artistic endings – or not

Some people, however, simply prefer not to have any endings at all:

M C Escher’s wonderful pictures contain such things as never-ending staircases and rivers, and for the more scientifically minded, the Mobius strip is an example of something which not only has no end (being a loop), but has only a single side (being a very cunning loop).

Story endings

A good ending is a key part of any story and will keep it in the reader’s mind, sometimes for years. According to some creative writing tutors, there are six possible ways to end a story:

A resolved endingThis ties up all the loose ends in a satisfactory way, leaving the reader with no unanswered questions.

An unresolved endingThis leaves the reader with more questions than answers and may herald the fact that the book is part of a series and that the cliffhanger will be resolved in the next book.

An unexpected endingThis involves some kind of twist or surprise. The best surprise endings are those where the reader can look back afterwards and see that whatever happened was inevitable – the author had left clues all along – but they personally didn’t see it coming.

An ambiguous endingThis is an ending that is open to interpretation, so that different readers might come to a completely different conclusion about what happened.

An expanded endingThis often takes the form of an epilogue in which subsequent events beyond the timescale of the story are described. Sometimes it involves looking back at the events of the story from a different perspective.

A tied endingThis is perhaps the most difficult ending to write. It is one where the story comes full circle and ends where it begins. However, the journey to this point has to be meaningful or readers will feel that it hasn’t been worth the time invested in reading the story.

Final endings

If you want your final ending to be a spectacular one, you might want to investigate themed funerals, which more than one funeral company’s website claims are a growing trend.

Apparently, it is illegal in most places to attempt the sort of Viking funeral depicted in films, with the body placed on a ship which is set on fire as it is pushed away from the shore. Apart from the fact that this is merely a Hollywood fantasy and Viking burials, even those involving a ship, generally took place on land, experts agree that it would be an inefficient and largely unsuccessful means of disposing of a body. However, there is nothing to stop you having a coffin shaped like a Viking ship or having your already-cremated remains sent off to sea in a burning boat.

Viking-themed funerals are seemingly quite popular, and UK funeral directors appear largely happy to play along with the last requests of the deceased, however bizarre. This resulted in one funeral director in Scotland leading the cortege dressed as Darth Vader, at the request of the relatives, who were similarly garbed as characters from Star Wars, the deceased’s favourite film.

Who needs a happy ending?

There is a photocopiable activity on the next page that you might wish to use with your students. This can also be downloaded at the bottom of this page.

Answers to Activity 2

1 both 2 Sam 3 both 4 Jo 5 Sam 6 Sam 7 Jo 8 Sam

Who needs a happy ending?

1 Read what two people say about happy endings.

Sam

Some years ago, a publisher told me that my books would be better if they didn’t always have a happy ending. I have also noticed that on book review websites, readers often leave comments like ‘I really enjoyed this book, despite the happy ending’. So when did happiness become unfashionable, and what exactly is wrong with a happy ending? Although books that address the difficulties of life can be instructive and thought-provoking – sometimes they can even change the world – surely not every book has to be full of misery, with its characters ending up in despair!

Happy endings give people hope that their lives can turn out better and that obstacles can be overcome, and they inspire people to go on making the effort to find happiness. After all, if there was never any possibility of a happy ending, what would be the point of trying for one?

I ignored my publisher’s advice and have gone on to sell many thousands of copies of my novels. So there are clearly plenty of people out there who still want a happy ending.

Jo

Popular culture is full of stories in which people overcome difficulties and gain strength and happiness despite experiencing the most terrible things. You see them every day on social media, in newspapers and on TV programmes. These days, we have come to expect that every tragic story will end with triumph over adversity. But what about those people who don’t triumph? Are their stories of less value? Do they not deserve to be heard? Are they to be silenced because they have failed to turn defeat into victory?

Stories with happy endings have their place, of course, because they give us hope. However, all too often, that hope is accompanied by a kind of smug happiness that seems to diminish anyone who has not ‘fought’ cancer and won, who has not overcome their addiction to gambling and gone on to have a worthwhile career in the charity sector, who has not made the best of the cards that life has dealt them.

Storytelling is an important part of our lives, but we need to make sure that it deals with the setbacks as well as the successes. Giving every story a warm and cosy happy ending leads to unrealistic expectations and, potentially, greater dissatisfaction with our lives.

2 Which speaker (Sam, Jo or both):

1. believes that the way a story ends can affect people’s attitudes to life?
2. is talking only about literature, not real-life stories?
3. believes that happy endings give people hope?
4. thinks society’s obsession with happy endings is unfair to people whose stories end unhappily?
5. believes that happy endings can be inspirational?
6. believes people are unfairly critical of books with happy endings?
7. believes that stories that end unhappily do not get much publicity?
8. thinks that stories about problems can inspire people to take action?

3 Discuss these questions in pairs or small groups.

1. Do you agree with either Sam or Jo? Whose opinion is closest to your own?
2. Do you prefer books and films that have a happy ending?
3. Do you find happy endings unrealistic?
4. How do you feel when you read a story (real or fictional) that ends badly?
5. Can you think of a book where you didn’t like the ending, though you enjoyed the rest?

Scrapbook compiled by Ian Waring Green