Endings
are inevitable. Try as you might, nothing continues forever. It sounds trite,
but it’s a reality that every author faces sooner or later.
I remember when the TV show Frasier
ended. For eleven seasons, viewers had followed the madcap adventures of the
titular character and his rich supporting cast. You can still catch reruns, but
the show has been off the air now longer than it was on. That world, so
carefully created and cultivated, finally came to an end, giving us closure.
Frasier was one of the lucky
ones. Far too many shows end with the nail-biter cliffhanger that is never
concluded. Our heroes forever live in a state of limbo and uncertainty. Did they
escape? Did they die? Were the lovers reunited? No doubt the screen writers
wanted to leave the audience begging for more, hoping that another season would
be granted. When they didn’t get it, there was no closure and the characters live in world of unresolved question. For those writers, their exit strategy didn’t marry up to that of
external forces.
Literary authors face a similar challenge of how to put a story to bed. We spend months
and years creating a world, fleshing out characters, and building a plot in the
hopes that readers will fall in love with the story as much as we have. But
once a series begins, the question becomes when and where to end it. Do you
continue writing as long as people are willing to buy your books? Do you close the door when it’s at the peak of readership? Or do you create an arc that begins and
ends no matter what happens exterior to your story?
Most times the answer is, "it depends".
Scott
Westerfeld’s Succession duology (The Risen Empire and The Killing of Worlds) is one of the
greatest space operas of modern times. Would I love for there to be more than
two? Absolutely. But the life of the story only required a pair of books. J.K.
Rowling, however, needed seven (possibly more from the rumors). Anyone who has
read David Weber’s Honor Harrington series or Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files knows you need to reserve
a couple of book shelves for each.
Whether
you’re a Westerfeld or a Butcher, at some point you have to call it quits. Pack
up the characters and say goodbye. Some creators, however, may be afraid to
wrap up their worlds because they fear that they won’t have another one to
offer or that their readers won’t follow them to new realms. But that fear could
wind up being detrimental. Stay in one place too long and you run the risk of
growing stagnant. Characters might lose their shine or plots could become repetitive.
So
how do you know when your literary world is complete?
It’s
an interesting question, one that was posed to me by my Dragon Brother while I
was working on the final book of the Shifter Chronicles. Sure,
I could have kept the series going, but to what point in the future? I hadn’t
planned an exit strategy when I wrote Undead
Chaos many moons ago. Heck, I hadn’t done more than write the opening
chapter to a sequel because I never thought it would wind up in print. So when
Carina Press offered me the chance to round out the trilogy, I sat down to figure
out my exit strategy. How was I going to say goodbye to everyone? How would I
complete my literary world?
Ultimately, the
question falls to authors themselves. They know their series and
their characters better than anyone and hopefully they have a vision for an ending.
Maybe it’s one determined by external forces, like books sales or a contract,
or maybe it’s something internal. But no matter what, at some point, they have
to write “The End” once and for all.
After all, a great work of art can live
forever. It just can’t continue forever.
Joshua Roots is a car collector, beekeeper, and storyteller. He enjoys singing with his a cappella chorus, golf, and all facets of Sci-Fi/Fantasy. He's still waiting for his acceptance letter to Hogwarts and Rogue Squadron. He and his wife will talk your ear off about their bees if you let them.
Paranormal Chaos, the final book in the Shifter Chronicles, is available for pre-order wherever digital books are sold.
