Please don't shorten your answers on our account; I learn so much from them. I particularly liked the story about the anthology, how the set up makes the ending feel inevitable. That's the way I think about it in my stories. The ending is right when it feels like it answers the question the story is asking.
George, thank you for this, especially for generously letting us in on how you ended Victory Lap. It’s always nice to know that our writing gurus struggle, too. That none of this comes easily for anyone. As far as writing shorter Thursday posts—I just hope you don’t burn out on all of this. We, your biggest fans, love your posts and always (selfishly) hope for more. But if it gets to be too much, that makes perfect sense, too.
Here are my own rambling thoughts on endings. Maybe off base…? But here you go:
I don’t know—is it considered old fashioned to talk about plot when talking about endings? I’m obviously not an expert, but I think sometimes the problem with an ending has to do with plotting. Also with understanding what your story is about—what you’re trying to tell yourself when writing your story. If your story arc isn’t working properly (and I mean more than escalation here—I mean escalation that leads to something happening, something crucial—all of George’s stories that I’ve read have this, usually a character must make a character-defining decision after all the escalation) and if you don’t know what your story is about (on both surface and deeper levels), then your ending is probably going to fail. As George says, a third act problem is a first act problem, and I know from experience just how true that is. The seed for your ending appears in your beginning (because, well, it has to!), so if you get to the end and you can’t bring things to a satisfactory close—if you can’t reach a new equilibrium after all the commotion of your plot—then you have to go back to the start and see where you went wrong. Maybe your ending is the ending to a different story—the one you didn’t write! It’s kind of a technical thing, even though writers like to write in that dreamy state, that half-conscious place, words funneling through the mind’s ether and onto the page. At a certain point, you’ve got to get real. Does this ending satisfy? Does it bring everything to a close? Does it point back to the beginning? Does it point to the heart of the story—the question the story has been asking the whole time? A story only asks one question. If your ending isn’t somehow related to that one question, then you have to go back in and see where you went wrong. If everything DOES point to the heart of things, then you’ve painted your floor, as George says, and you can step outside.
As always, I love your wise posts, Mary! I also want say that I often like story endings that point to the beginning, and to the fundamental question in the story, but stop a few beats before answering it.
oh, definitely. You don't have to tie up every string. You don't even have to answer the question you posed. But your story should escalate and come to that boil, after which, as all the books tell us, nothing will ever be the same.
Excellent questions to ask ourselves, Mary. George's #8. Really cool to see how we readers read differently but collectively understand when something's off with the plotting, pins are still up in the air. We might land in different places, but we know a landing like an itch.
Writing my longer work, I keep losing my arc with the "commotion" of my plot's journey (love that word for it) and have to keep the end in mind to get back on track. I keep asking myself over and over along the way: Why is this a story that asks to be told, shared, passed on to someone else? What makes it so?
Lately, I'm writing a lot of flash fiction and it sure helps me with endings, because that ending turn in flash has to be so tidy and quick that wasted words really stand out.
Flash fictions are so hard and complicated (for me, anyway)! They can be completely unconventional and don't have to be "stories" at all (think: Lydia Davis). You're so right about the endings of them--the ending holds the entire key and if you don't nail it, then the whole thing fails.
If you are going to attempt flash fiction Lydia Davis is an excellent source to consider. I was introduced to her as an undergrad by one of my first writing teachers and had enjoyed her work ever since. Stuart Dybek is another writer who has crafted some exceptional short pieces.
Dybek's "I Sailed with Magellan" is one of my all-time fav story collections, as is Peter Orner's "Esther Stories", another example of the brilliance of short.
i'm a big Lydia Davis fan. And Stuart Dybek is brilliant. I'd read some of his stories, but then George mentioned Hot Ice as being influential, so i found and read that one. Pretty amazing story(it's not a flash). Have you read Kathy Fish? She's kind of a star among flash fiction people.
I know you were asking Chris, Mary, but I just wrote a flash piece for one of Kathy's groups this evening! If Kathy and George can't make a writer out of me I'll deem the matter hopeless.
you made it into one of Kathy's groups! I've tried a couple of times but have now given up. I wish her waitlists rolled over, but she starts over every time.... Anyway, that's fantastic. I'm sure you're writing some great pieces!
The lessons from Story Club make flash fiction easier too. How can I generate the same feeling with less words? I think of Robin Williams in Dead Poet's Society where he uses the example of "very sad" that a student replaces with morose.
It's easy to see the effect act 1 has on act 3 in flash. Now, I'm more aware of repeating themes, which also helps word economy.
Sorry to admit being somewhat behind the curve (although it may have its advantages), but I found and read “Victory Lap” for the first time, late last night. A great example of, as George put it, digging for the deeper meaning. I’m glad he did! The ending he chose caused the story to echo in my head. The mirror effect; the reciprocal action. I have not read most of the Saunders oeuvre yet. I look forward to more relishing, savoring, and learning. (And thank you, Mary, for mentioning VL in your post, which invited me to think, hmm, I should read this…)
Victory Lap ending - that reveal from George was a gift to me, too! After I read the story for the first time, It took me a few months to read the rest of the stories in the book. Just wanted to savor it. Not quite knowing, I guess, there’d be more to savor.
Damned if all ten of those approaches don't actually help. It's hard (for me, anyway) to talk about the details of process & method, but you've laid out ten realistic, usable, intriguing, practical approaches in one wham-bam list of goodies. A million thanks for these. I can see myself trying out every one of them on half a dozen recent stories. Three brimming amphorae of kudos for you and yours!
I was thinking similarly. Plan to copy each of them down onto a 5x8 card perhaps and keep them nearby and, when working and ending, arbitrarily pulling one out. See how that works.
Thank you, George, for so much great food for thought. This one seems to tie together many of the ideas and notions expressed in prior posts. I like this idea of the story being a living, breathing organism that just might get up and walk, if paid enough attention.
And you’re not kidding, the discussion of “I Stand Here Ironing” blows me away. I have learned so much from all the different takes.
So, in an upcoming episode of 'The Interview' Jackie is going to role play 'The Interviewer' and David is going to role play 'The Story', improvising to proffer answers to to questions posed that, who knows, may just be the ones that have been, so far, eluding Jackie? Am I right? Or am I write? 🎭
I’m predisposed to being really hard on myself, so it’s super hard to know, even after years of revising, at what point my stories don’t suck. Admittedly, I sometimes have to say, okay, Amy, good enough, time to call it done. I could stand to learn how to endure longer because I’m up for some breakthroughs…just not sure how to work and rework without, like, beating the crap out of myself?
I recently got a good laugh from a New Yorker cartoon. Two scientist are observing three sad robots sitting at a long table, all writing on computers. One scientist says to the other: "The robots have become self-aware and self-loathing. Now all they do is write novels."
George - there is no need to shorten any Thursday commentary. I thought you were headed to Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird re: endings. But 10 works.
For me, there’s always an element in the title or the first paragraph that connects to the ending. “My Last Duchess” and “My First Goose” beg the questions that there were other duchesses and will be more geese. It gives those stories a sense even the ending is artificial because something in the story will go on after the reading has stopped.
I like #8. And I think it's OK if you're never done done, or there's an editor waiting and that's the best you have right now. If Vonnegut, Saunders, and Olsen can rewrite their endings later, so can everybody else:-)
Done is done..is when it is over and I hope over is way over there far away from all of us...though messages come close all the time. Over and Outerbridge^^
I joined Story Club in mid-January and missed the first couple of topics. I did go back and read all the stories when I first joined, but had avoided reading the comments. I realize now the comments are a huge part of this whole experience, so I’ve been working my way through all the comment sections, right from the beginning.
It’s especially convenient for me to note that George’s words and so many comments about The Falls, and later about Cat in the Rain have to do with endings, since we’re now talking about endings. I also went back and re-read Victory Lap (I read it quite a few years ago) and was awestruck— both by how great the story is, and also by knowing the inside story of how the ending came about. Wow!
Last January, I didn’t think I’d ever actually post comments because my writing feels overly simple and direct (maybe from years of writing special education reports for an audience of parents and teachers: no room for personal opinion, only professional recommendations). I am starting to realize it’s okay to be myself and even have some fun writing. Thank you to everyone in this amazing group, and especially to George who brings out the best.
Am wondering if any of you have had this experience or if I was just incredibly lucky (this time).
I’d written a story, believed what I had to that point was engaging, that, in particular I’d done a good job creating the world of the story, but the ending eluded me. I sat with it for several weeks, had a couple of friends read it who thought it was fine the way it was (I knew it wasn’t, knew it wasn’t a story), and then, one day, sat down and, to the best of my recollection, because it was kind of a blur how this happened, had the characters continue with what had been the final scene, and it came to me. And I knew it was EXACTLY the right ending, that there could have been no other ending (for it to be the story I knew it was meant to be) and yet knew it would surprise the reader.
Never been so sure of anything in my life. Had my mentor Jim Krusoe take a look at it, tweaked a very few things, and sent it out. Plenty of rejections of course, but those didn’t sting like usual because I KNEW it would hit and it did. Got accepted and then, before I had a chance to pull it from other places I’d sent it, got two more requests to publish it (of course I went with the first). Will I ever have that certainty again? How did that ending come to me? I wish I knew. All I can do is be grateful.
Yep, Erica, it's happened to me, too. That, I believe, would be the "gut way". I'm convinced that stepping away from it might have been the best thing you could have done, that while you were away the back of your brain was sorting it out, then delivered when it was ready.
Yes, Rosanne. I re-read George's post and realized what happened was kind of a combination of Ways 4 -7, bits and pieces of each. But it felt so unintentional, which leaves me feeling so vulnerable to the process.
"Vulnerable" is at least part of why we write, yes? Besides, we have so little control over much of anything in life, why should we have any control over this? Ha.
I wonder at how closely akin the elation you've experienced is to that felt by Dickens in getting 'A Christmas Carole' done in good time for hitting any and all good booksellers everywhere?
Or that elation felt by the each of our Story Club authors (i.e. Saunders, Hemmingway, Lu Hsun, Berriault, Babel, Olsen) when the stories which we have encountered, placed in their respective closed reading frames, were notified as 'accepted for publication'?
Pretty much same same for you Erica, I'm thinking, well done 👍. Let the ⚡ strike, soon, again!
Thank you, Rob! Before I pulled the piece from other sites, I heard from Massachusetts Review that although the piece was not quite right for them, they were impressed with the writing and requested I send them more work. Ha ha, I thought, as if I had a bag of these! Will I ever produce another? I can only hope and will keep trying.
Great discovery. You entered the zone. It's not just with writers: performers and athletes also report it. What all have in common is that they have repeated the moment of performance so many times the conscious awareness drops and they are welcomed into the zone. As writers, that mean many, many visits to a piece. Writing is hard work, like making the Olympics or something.
So true, Ron, and I know that feeling as both a performer and athlete. As a ballet dancer I performed for years including under Antony Tudor when he guest taught at UC Irvine, and then, my dancing career behind me, I became a runner and won many 5K races. (And now I have the bilateral hip replacements to show for it all...) But those were so centered in physicality, with my brain nearly disengaged. It's a new thing to find myself in the cerebral zone. A new frontier!
Hi Erica. Congratulations on the story! I love Jim Krusoe! He was my advisor or whatever we called it (mentor?) at Antioch a long time ago. Just such a great guy.
I reread George’s help on endings, and reread Victory Lap this morning and I’d like to articulate my response to its massively powerful, to me, this morning, ending. I've rewritten this a few times to try and get it more better.
So. At the beginning of the end, Kyle is holding the geode over the wounded attacker’s head:
what will Kyle do?
Two realities shimmer – one where he brings the rock down and one where he doesn’t.
The moment is elided by a jump in time. “For months afterwards she had nightmares in which Kyle brought the rock down....”
Here I believe completely that Kyle has in fact brought the rock down. My emotions tumble me into this view. She is reliving this horrible experience. (Rereading I see it differently).
I did pause over the text: “Then the guy had no head. The blow just literally dissolved his head.” Which sounds unreal and dream-like, but in the moment of my belief in the act, I read as a subjective experience of an actual action.
Also leading me to believe that Kyle kills the attacker is how Alison wonders how in dreams “we can’t do the simplest things” – It seems to say that in the crucial moment she does not cry out and therefore Kyle does in fact smash the rock into the guy.
At this point, I am in “OH NO!” state emotionally: these kids’ lives are forever blighted! (which I think is where George wants me, qua reader).
And then “Sometimes she’d wake up crying from the dream about Kyle. The last time... “
(Oh and I now notice “The last time...” – i.e. she doesn’t have the nightmare again – this is where it ends for Alison.)
“...The last time, Mom and Dad were already there, going, That’s not how it was. Remember Allie?”
And it’s the loving adults who put me, the reader, right too. “Say it. Say it out loud. Allie can you tell Mommy and Daddy how it really happened?”
(I think of Mr. Rogers advice to children – to look for the helpers, when terrible things happen.)
“I ran outside, she said. I shouted.”
And now we are whoosh—joyfully speeding down a ski jump and wheeee! rising high in relief! – something akin to Kyle’s "lush release of pressure" (gorgeous phrase) -- to the actual fabulous ending.
I'm not sure I ever really, properly read this story before -- or maybe was willing to let it in. The prospect of the rape of a young fancy-filled girl -- well, walls rise, Roman legions square up around my crouching psyche, etc.
George Saunders stories generally (in my experience) demand a level of rib-cracking opening up of their readers--but then the heart of the tale shines out! (Reminds me of that figure of Jesus we see in Catholic churches.)
He puts these ordinary people, befogged and begirt by the numberless delusions of life, into exceptional circumstances and under horrendous pressures. What do they do? Kyle and Alison -- They did good.
Thank you, George, for telling us of the ending that was good enough to be accepted by The New Yorker but which you knew wasn’t IT. You were so right!
Yes, agreed. I didn't want to give too much away (for those who hadn't read it) but the revised ending is much better, as I said in my previous comment. I thought the clear implication was that Kyle saved her, despite his fear of his rigid controlling parents but didn't kill the attacker. An
ending where his parents now understand that they need to loosen up would be too pat and pollyannish to me. I think it's better to wonder: maybe they woke up and maybe they went through the motions of loosening up, but really didn't because they can't, for their own reasons, buried in themselves.
An ending where we wonder how all parts of the fictional world respond to the ending event or situation, with a strong sense of how they might, given the story parameters - yes, that’s something to go for!!
I have never before had writing advice at this standard, and level of detail, or anywhere near it. The only problem is, in a really gentle, kindly way it rams home every few days how clueless I've been with pretty much everything I've written to this point. Gah.
"As we’ve recently discussed, here’s one thing we writers really can get better at: precisely judging how good a scene or paragraph is, vs. the best we’ve done in the past."
As mentioned above, I've had to learn that I don't really have anything that deserves the description 'best'. One of the benefits of editing your own work off an e-reader, though, is that you can quickly switch to writing by true prose masters and kind of humiliate yourself into wanting to somehow bridge the gap in quality, even a tiny bit, between your own writing and the genuine 'best'.
Maybe George could write a post sometime about the upside of relentless humiliation.
I don't know if this is helpful but I have found it a relief to acknowledge that I know nothing as I begin a story and work through it, and that I embrace that I am not a master of the craft. As such it doesn't have to be good. Having no expectations, there's no reason to be disappointed. Having no goal everything I do is a success.
I know what you mean, Chris. For years I wrote with no thought of an audience at all -- weird meandering projects involving remixing and splicing together out of copyright fiction, that kind of thing -- and therefore no expectations about being good.
But the book I've been writing this past year doesn't really seem to make sense unless it finds some kind of audience. It's also likely to be fairly controversial, if it ever does find a readership, and I suppose that's meant I've become more perfectionist and therefore anxious about it, trying to anticipate every last weakness before they're identified by those I'm guessing will dislike it. Whether this is any more fun than my old private projects, I really amn't sure.
This is a bit circuitous but--I admire Jonathan Franzen--his books and also I appreciate him as a person, participating in the local Santa Cruz literary scene - e.g. he showed up at Community Writers, with his estimable partner Kathy Chetkovich, and they were both totally present and available for all the readings - and he read too, a sneak preview of a scene in Crossroads, not yet then published. Anyway. Decent bloke. Great writer. Recently I read an interview with Franzen about the new covers for his to-be-re-issued backlist, and he said this: "The message I always want a jacket to send is that the book inside is is fun to read, full of drama." So wow - I took that -- "FUN TO READ, FULL OF DRAMA" and elevated it to kind of a motto. I was a bit surprised at his comment - it's not exactly how I might characterize his stories, much as I enjoy them. I guess it depends how you define fun! But I love it, this motto. This fun approach. The buoyancy. I really don't write well when I'm depressed or excoriating myself. But - whatever floats your boat, even if it's a hook, line, and sinker! And of course my project is a light-weight one by Proustian or Tolstovian etc standards of course - it's a kid's novel. But I take it seriously too.
How to define fun... hmmm. Difficult. I find that when reading something that I'm truly enjoying, I'm smiling. Sometimes I notice this and other times I don't until my smile broadens. Same thing happens when in a great performance of music or theatre, provided I'm enjoying the content as well as the form. Movies, even very good t.v., to me, can be "fun" if I find myself smiling as I experience it (I don't mean just the laugh-out-loud stuff - I smiled through the recent Macbeth on Netflix, especially the scenes with the splendid Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth.)
Yeah! I recognize what you're saying about that smile! It's kind of a deep or complex feeling of appreciation, satisfaction with the, um, multivalent experience, even if there's a lot of - blood or suffering! Your Macbeth example w Frances McDormand fits that bill! And writers like Franzen too, or even more intense - David Foster Wallace. He's like a too-hot chili for me to enjoy - but I do appreciate his greatness. And, whether one can smile also depends on where one is at, of course. Some of those experiences are not fun at all, then. But can be worth the pain.
Maybe you might try, and find the joy, of not being so relentless in 'beating-up on yourself' Sean?
A word and a phrase that I've found resonate with me most times George drops them into a Newsletter are: 'fun' and 'goof around'.
My creative sinews seem, even as I write this, to be loosening towards writing some fresh short fiction . . . maybe there's even a working title, emerging from its hitherto hidden chrysalis . . . to set a story draft going . . . 'Chillax'?
But what if my idea of fun is relentless humiliation? ;-)
Honestly, though, Rob, I really do think a kind of strong embarrassment about my writing can be useful. If I write something truly awful (not an infrequent occurrence) and then later recognise it as such, that self-disappointment seems to burrow into the subconscious and result in writing that simply wouldn't have happened without that embarrassment. It's as though it acts as a weird mild form of creative ECT. Make sense?
The key of course is to never get so disappointed that you quit writing completely, and in this sense what I'm saying here is close enough to what George tells us. He says *welcome* the mild flaws you perceive in your writing, 'park' them, let them marinate, etc. I suppose I'm just saying, about myself at least, that the same approach can be taken with my/our very worst howlers.
Good to see you still posting here, man. Your wit is appreciated.
I can really see, more likely imagine I can see, that first line Sean:
'Today began much as yesterday. Normal for me I had breakfast, washed up, took a walk around the pond in the park and then spent three solid hours writing, as usual, something truly awful . . . '
As Lee and Mimi responded, please don’t shorten Thursdays answers. It feels like you are talking to us in person! And Lee, I like your comment how the Title or the first paragraph connects to the ending...sometimes, George?
So many ways to consider an ending. I struggled with the ending of my recent novel for too long, worrying how my reader would feel. Would she be disappointed? Bereft? Feeling cheated? Angry? God I hoped not, perhaps too much. I wanted her to close the back cover and smile. Just smile, as if to say "of course." That is a real tall order, and I don't know if I achieved it, but reports from early readers are consistent in their demand for MORE. So that tells me I ended without resolution, which is a failed ending, unless I do a sequel. But isn't that a cop out? I believe endings are as important as the first few pages. If they succeed, you live to be read another day. If they fail, game over.
I have gone completely mad in one story. Yay! I’ve revised it every day for the last five months, sometimes twice a day. At first I got a growing sense I was fixated, obsessive, compulsive, avoiding something else. Then my older, experienced, more self-accepting senior self chimed in with, “Why not go with it and see what happens?” I still work on other stuff, but this is my pet project. George, I must blame you a bit for getting me started doing it. Actually, thank you.
Many days, I change a phrase that had a little bullshit factor in it and find words that are truer to the voice of whoever was speaking, such as the change from “whomever” I just did. That micro-process lasts till today and sometimes makes significant steps forward to trueness, and other times reflects the old story of the author who puts in a comma in the morning and takes it out in the afternoon. I forget whom.
But on other days, especially well into the marathon, something else happens. Part of me goes numb. The part that wants to hold onto nice paragraphs even when they’re not doing good work. I re-read a paragraph and for the first time, I’m ready to feel the bullshit meter and I make a significant cut. This has helped me quite a bit to cut fat but not mess with the parts that are actually working to construct a natural world in the story where everything fits together and only true moving parts are left.
That last phrase brings me to the engineering metaphor you often use, George. I do think there are phases in the process of creating a story. First, the dump part. Exploration might be the best word. Some call it self-expression, but since listening to William Stafford lean away from that concept on YouTube, I like exploration or discovery better.
Then the engineering phase, where you start moving things around, still in a an exploratory mode.
Finally, the reverse engineering phase. At some point, you can look at your piece with more of the left brain and ask, “What has my unconscious delivered to me to back engineer?, to understand like the lady in Engineering removing parts from a product, one by one?”
It’s almost as if the material has come from another person for me to edit. Here, I can let go of my prejudices about my piece and my "wonderful" writing and break it down as if it were a commercial reverse-engineer project. I am in a state of maximum hovering over myself, as if in Buddhist practice. The real meaning of the story and how its moving parts can be arranged for best effect, become clearer. Before that point, maybe my knee-jerk biases cloud the picture.
I can relate to the shift you talk about where you can suddenly see the story or chapter as if someone else wrote it. The umbilical cord is severed. Though maybe it regrows! Still. It’s a good place that I enjoy. Kind of unmired.
Please don't shorten your answers on our account; I learn so much from them. I particularly liked the story about the anthology, how the set up makes the ending feel inevitable. That's the way I think about it in my stories. The ending is right when it feels like it answers the question the story is asking.
I agree, Mimi! I look forward to these emails, no matter how long or short, plus all the comments.
I get a jillion e-mails in a week. Guess how many I really look forward to reading.
Ditto here. Maybe go longer!
George, thank you for this, especially for generously letting us in on how you ended Victory Lap. It’s always nice to know that our writing gurus struggle, too. That none of this comes easily for anyone. As far as writing shorter Thursday posts—I just hope you don’t burn out on all of this. We, your biggest fans, love your posts and always (selfishly) hope for more. But if it gets to be too much, that makes perfect sense, too.
Here are my own rambling thoughts on endings. Maybe off base…? But here you go:
I don’t know—is it considered old fashioned to talk about plot when talking about endings? I’m obviously not an expert, but I think sometimes the problem with an ending has to do with plotting. Also with understanding what your story is about—what you’re trying to tell yourself when writing your story. If your story arc isn’t working properly (and I mean more than escalation here—I mean escalation that leads to something happening, something crucial—all of George’s stories that I’ve read have this, usually a character must make a character-defining decision after all the escalation) and if you don’t know what your story is about (on both surface and deeper levels), then your ending is probably going to fail. As George says, a third act problem is a first act problem, and I know from experience just how true that is. The seed for your ending appears in your beginning (because, well, it has to!), so if you get to the end and you can’t bring things to a satisfactory close—if you can’t reach a new equilibrium after all the commotion of your plot—then you have to go back to the start and see where you went wrong. Maybe your ending is the ending to a different story—the one you didn’t write! It’s kind of a technical thing, even though writers like to write in that dreamy state, that half-conscious place, words funneling through the mind’s ether and onto the page. At a certain point, you’ve got to get real. Does this ending satisfy? Does it bring everything to a close? Does it point back to the beginning? Does it point to the heart of the story—the question the story has been asking the whole time? A story only asks one question. If your ending isn’t somehow related to that one question, then you have to go back in and see where you went wrong. If everything DOES point to the heart of things, then you’ve painted your floor, as George says, and you can step outside.
That's my take, anyway.
As always, I love your wise posts, Mary! I also want say that I often like story endings that point to the beginning, and to the fundamental question in the story, but stop a few beats before answering it.
Then things escalate beyond the ending.
oh, definitely. You don't have to tie up every string. You don't even have to answer the question you posed. But your story should escalate and come to that boil, after which, as all the books tell us, nothing will ever be the same.
Yes! Exactly.
and you can always end by asking another question????^^
Excellent questions to ask ourselves, Mary. George's #8. Really cool to see how we readers read differently but collectively understand when something's off with the plotting, pins are still up in the air. We might land in different places, but we know a landing like an itch.
Writing my longer work, I keep losing my arc with the "commotion" of my plot's journey (love that word for it) and have to keep the end in mind to get back on track. I keep asking myself over and over along the way: Why is this a story that asks to be told, shared, passed on to someone else? What makes it so?
Lately, I'm writing a lot of flash fiction and it sure helps me with endings, because that ending turn in flash has to be so tidy and quick that wasted words really stand out.
Flash fictions are so hard and complicated (for me, anyway)! They can be completely unconventional and don't have to be "stories" at all (think: Lydia Davis). You're so right about the endings of them--the ending holds the entire key and if you don't nail it, then the whole thing fails.
If you are going to attempt flash fiction Lydia Davis is an excellent source to consider. I was introduced to her as an undergrad by one of my first writing teachers and had enjoyed her work ever since. Stuart Dybek is another writer who has crafted some exceptional short pieces.
Dybek's "I Sailed with Magellan" is one of my all-time fav story collections, as is Peter Orner's "Esther Stories", another example of the brilliance of short.
i'm a big Lydia Davis fan. And Stuart Dybek is brilliant. I'd read some of his stories, but then George mentioned Hot Ice as being influential, so i found and read that one. Pretty amazing story(it's not a flash). Have you read Kathy Fish? She's kind of a star among flash fiction people.
I know you were asking Chris, Mary, but I just wrote a flash piece for one of Kathy's groups this evening! If Kathy and George can't make a writer out of me I'll deem the matter hopeless.
you made it into one of Kathy's groups! I've tried a couple of times but have now given up. I wish her waitlists rolled over, but she starts over every time.... Anyway, that's fantastic. I'm sure you're writing some great pieces!
The lessons from Story Club make flash fiction easier too. How can I generate the same feeling with less words? I think of Robin Williams in Dead Poet's Society where he uses the example of "very sad" that a student replaces with morose.
It's easy to see the effect act 1 has on act 3 in flash. Now, I'm more aware of repeating themes, which also helps word economy.
... or maybe it's the #7. Lots of useful stuff, regardless...
Sorry to admit being somewhat behind the curve (although it may have its advantages), but I found and read “Victory Lap” for the first time, late last night. A great example of, as George put it, digging for the deeper meaning. I’m glad he did! The ending he chose caused the story to echo in my head. The mirror effect; the reciprocal action. I have not read most of the Saunders oeuvre yet. I look forward to more relishing, savoring, and learning. (And thank you, Mary, for mentioning VL in your post, which invited me to think, hmm, I should read this…)
Victory Lap ending - that reveal from George was a gift to me, too! After I read the story for the first time, It took me a few months to read the rest of the stories in the book. Just wanted to savor it. Not quite knowing, I guess, there’d be more to savor.
You are always ON BASE^^
ha! Thank you, Graeme!
Thank you!
Damned if all ten of those approaches don't actually help. It's hard (for me, anyway) to talk about the details of process & method, but you've laid out ten realistic, usable, intriguing, practical approaches in one wham-bam list of goodies. A million thanks for these. I can see myself trying out every one of them on half a dozen recent stories. Three brimming amphorae of kudos for you and yours!
I was thinking similarly. Plan to copy each of them down onto a 5x8 card perhaps and keep them nearby and, when working and ending, arbitrarily pulling one out. See how that works.
Cool idea. I’m going to do that today.
Good idea. I've added them to my Scrivener projects file.
Thank you, George, for so much great food for thought. This one seems to tie together many of the ideas and notions expressed in prior posts. I like this idea of the story being a living, breathing organism that just might get up and walk, if paid enough attention.
And you’re not kidding, the discussion of “I Stand Here Ironing” blows me away. I have learned so much from all the different takes.
yes, I also like this idea of asking my story questions and listening... Learning so much indeed :-)
Agreed. Me too. I like to proceed with the story always talking to me, and it is my job to listen. But asking questions is valuable too.
So, in an upcoming episode of 'The Interview' Jackie is going to role play 'The Interviewer' and David is going to role play 'The Story', improvising to proffer answers to to questions posed that, who knows, may just be the ones that have been, so far, eluding Jackie? Am I right? Or am I write? 🎭
Righteously so. Could be fun!!
I’m predisposed to being really hard on myself, so it’s super hard to know, even after years of revising, at what point my stories don’t suck. Admittedly, I sometimes have to say, okay, Amy, good enough, time to call it done. I could stand to learn how to endure longer because I’m up for some breakthroughs…just not sure how to work and rework without, like, beating the crap out of myself?
Thanks for posting this. Makes me feel better about my own worries. I wish we could just skip over that part, the beating the crap out of self part.
Ya no kidding!! Maybe comes with the territory...
Writers are self-loathing narcissists, too…
Or self-loathing masochists, writing and rewriting until it hurts so good!
I recently got a good laugh from a New Yorker cartoon. Two scientist are observing three sad robots sitting at a long table, all writing on computers. One scientist says to the other: "The robots have become self-aware and self-loathing. Now all they do is write novels."
Pure genius.
Right! I think I might have to practice some Zen meditation while revising; practice non-attachment.
George - there is no need to shorten any Thursday commentary. I thought you were headed to Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird re: endings. But 10 works.
For me, there’s always an element in the title or the first paragraph that connects to the ending. “My Last Duchess” and “My First Goose” beg the questions that there were other duchesses and will be more geese. It gives those stories a sense even the ending is artificial because something in the story will go on after the reading has stopped.
"I thought you were headed to Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird re: endings. But 10 works."
My experience exactly!
Echoing the sentiment to not shorten. Speaking for myself, the more the better. It's nourishing.
I like #8. And I think it's OK if you're never done done, or there's an editor waiting and that's the best you have right now. If Vonnegut, Saunders, and Olsen can rewrite their endings later, so can everybody else:-)
Done is done..is when it is over and I hope over is way over there far away from all of us...though messages come close all the time. Over and Outerbridge^^
"Fall in love a lot of times and…compare those times." That one's fuel for my pen!
I have to say it works! And as a bonus one learns, at least slightly, that there might be a after all between attraction and affinity.
That there might be a difference, is what I thought I had typed! But there might also be similarities…
I joined Story Club in mid-January and missed the first couple of topics. I did go back and read all the stories when I first joined, but had avoided reading the comments. I realize now the comments are a huge part of this whole experience, so I’ve been working my way through all the comment sections, right from the beginning.
It’s especially convenient for me to note that George’s words and so many comments about The Falls, and later about Cat in the Rain have to do with endings, since we’re now talking about endings. I also went back and re-read Victory Lap (I read it quite a few years ago) and was awestruck— both by how great the story is, and also by knowing the inside story of how the ending came about. Wow!
Last January, I didn’t think I’d ever actually post comments because my writing feels overly simple and direct (maybe from years of writing special education reports for an audience of parents and teachers: no room for personal opinion, only professional recommendations). I am starting to realize it’s okay to be myself and even have some fun writing. Thank you to everyone in this amazing group, and especially to George who brings out the best.
Am wondering if any of you have had this experience or if I was just incredibly lucky (this time).
I’d written a story, believed what I had to that point was engaging, that, in particular I’d done a good job creating the world of the story, but the ending eluded me. I sat with it for several weeks, had a couple of friends read it who thought it was fine the way it was (I knew it wasn’t, knew it wasn’t a story), and then, one day, sat down and, to the best of my recollection, because it was kind of a blur how this happened, had the characters continue with what had been the final scene, and it came to me. And I knew it was EXACTLY the right ending, that there could have been no other ending (for it to be the story I knew it was meant to be) and yet knew it would surprise the reader.
Never been so sure of anything in my life. Had my mentor Jim Krusoe take a look at it, tweaked a very few things, and sent it out. Plenty of rejections of course, but those didn’t sting like usual because I KNEW it would hit and it did. Got accepted and then, before I had a chance to pull it from other places I’d sent it, got two more requests to publish it (of course I went with the first). Will I ever have that certainty again? How did that ending come to me? I wish I knew. All I can do is be grateful.
"It was kind of a blur how this happened." So familiar.
Yep, Erica, it's happened to me, too. That, I believe, would be the "gut way". I'm convinced that stepping away from it might have been the best thing you could have done, that while you were away the back of your brain was sorting it out, then delivered when it was ready.
Yes, Rosanne. I re-read George's post and realized what happened was kind of a combination of Ways 4 -7, bits and pieces of each. But it felt so unintentional, which leaves me feeling so vulnerable to the process.
"Vulnerable" is at least part of why we write, yes? Besides, we have so little control over much of anything in life, why should we have any control over this? Ha.
I wonder at how closely akin the elation you've experienced is to that felt by Dickens in getting 'A Christmas Carole' done in good time for hitting any and all good booksellers everywhere?
Or that elation felt by the each of our Story Club authors (i.e. Saunders, Hemmingway, Lu Hsun, Berriault, Babel, Olsen) when the stories which we have encountered, placed in their respective closed reading frames, were notified as 'accepted for publication'?
Pretty much same same for you Erica, I'm thinking, well done 👍. Let the ⚡ strike, soon, again!
Thank you, Rob! Before I pulled the piece from other sites, I heard from Massachusetts Review that although the piece was not quite right for them, they were impressed with the writing and requested I send them more work. Ha ha, I thought, as if I had a bag of these! Will I ever produce another? I can only hope and will keep trying.
Great discovery. You entered the zone. It's not just with writers: performers and athletes also report it. What all have in common is that they have repeated the moment of performance so many times the conscious awareness drops and they are welcomed into the zone. As writers, that mean many, many visits to a piece. Writing is hard work, like making the Olympics or something.
So true, Ron, and I know that feeling as both a performer and athlete. As a ballet dancer I performed for years including under Antony Tudor when he guest taught at UC Irvine, and then, my dancing career behind me, I became a runner and won many 5K races. (And now I have the bilateral hip replacements to show for it all...) But those were so centered in physicality, with my brain nearly disengaged. It's a new thing to find myself in the cerebral zone. A new frontier!
Hi Erica. Congratulations on the story! I love Jim Krusoe! He was my advisor or whatever we called it (mentor?) at Antioch a long time ago. Just such a great guy.
Lucky you!! Yes, a lovely, lovely man.
I reread George’s help on endings, and reread Victory Lap this morning and I’d like to articulate my response to its massively powerful, to me, this morning, ending. I've rewritten this a few times to try and get it more better.
So. At the beginning of the end, Kyle is holding the geode over the wounded attacker’s head:
what will Kyle do?
Two realities shimmer – one where he brings the rock down and one where he doesn’t.
The moment is elided by a jump in time. “For months afterwards she had nightmares in which Kyle brought the rock down....”
Here I believe completely that Kyle has in fact brought the rock down. My emotions tumble me into this view. She is reliving this horrible experience. (Rereading I see it differently).
I did pause over the text: “Then the guy had no head. The blow just literally dissolved his head.” Which sounds unreal and dream-like, but in the moment of my belief in the act, I read as a subjective experience of an actual action.
Also leading me to believe that Kyle kills the attacker is how Alison wonders how in dreams “we can’t do the simplest things” – It seems to say that in the crucial moment she does not cry out and therefore Kyle does in fact smash the rock into the guy.
At this point, I am in “OH NO!” state emotionally: these kids’ lives are forever blighted! (which I think is where George wants me, qua reader).
And then “Sometimes she’d wake up crying from the dream about Kyle. The last time... “
(Oh and I now notice “The last time...” – i.e. she doesn’t have the nightmare again – this is where it ends for Alison.)
“...The last time, Mom and Dad were already there, going, That’s not how it was. Remember Allie?”
And it’s the loving adults who put me, the reader, right too. “Say it. Say it out loud. Allie can you tell Mommy and Daddy how it really happened?”
(I think of Mr. Rogers advice to children – to look for the helpers, when terrible things happen.)
“I ran outside, she said. I shouted.”
And now we are whoosh—joyfully speeding down a ski jump and wheeee! rising high in relief! – something akin to Kyle’s "lush release of pressure" (gorgeous phrase) -- to the actual fabulous ending.
I'm not sure I ever really, properly read this story before -- or maybe was willing to let it in. The prospect of the rape of a young fancy-filled girl -- well, walls rise, Roman legions square up around my crouching psyche, etc.
George Saunders stories generally (in my experience) demand a level of rib-cracking opening up of their readers--but then the heart of the tale shines out! (Reminds me of that figure of Jesus we see in Catholic churches.)
He puts these ordinary people, befogged and begirt by the numberless delusions of life, into exceptional circumstances and under horrendous pressures. What do they do? Kyle and Alison -- They did good.
Thank you, George, for telling us of the ending that was good enough to be accepted by The New Yorker but which you knew wasn’t IT. You were so right!
Yes, agreed. I didn't want to give too much away (for those who hadn't read it) but the revised ending is much better, as I said in my previous comment. I thought the clear implication was that Kyle saved her, despite his fear of his rigid controlling parents but didn't kill the attacker. An
ending where his parents now understand that they need to loosen up would be too pat and pollyannish to me. I think it's better to wonder: maybe they woke up and maybe they went through the motions of loosening up, but really didn't because they can't, for their own reasons, buried in themselves.
An ending where we wonder how all parts of the fictional world respond to the ending event or situation, with a strong sense of how they might, given the story parameters - yes, that’s something to go for!!
I'm so glad Story Clubbers asked those questions about endings. It's a struggle, and the ten ways are helpful. I love the long emails!
You are the Story Horse Whisperer ;)
I have never before had writing advice at this standard, and level of detail, or anywhere near it. The only problem is, in a really gentle, kindly way it rams home every few days how clueless I've been with pretty much everything I've written to this point. Gah.
"As we’ve recently discussed, here’s one thing we writers really can get better at: precisely judging how good a scene or paragraph is, vs. the best we’ve done in the past."
As mentioned above, I've had to learn that I don't really have anything that deserves the description 'best'. One of the benefits of editing your own work off an e-reader, though, is that you can quickly switch to writing by true prose masters and kind of humiliate yourself into wanting to somehow bridge the gap in quality, even a tiny bit, between your own writing and the genuine 'best'.
Maybe George could write a post sometime about the upside of relentless humiliation.
I don't know if this is helpful but I have found it a relief to acknowledge that I know nothing as I begin a story and work through it, and that I embrace that I am not a master of the craft. As such it doesn't have to be good. Having no expectations, there's no reason to be disappointed. Having no goal everything I do is a success.
I know what you mean, Chris. For years I wrote with no thought of an audience at all -- weird meandering projects involving remixing and splicing together out of copyright fiction, that kind of thing -- and therefore no expectations about being good.
But the book I've been writing this past year doesn't really seem to make sense unless it finds some kind of audience. It's also likely to be fairly controversial, if it ever does find a readership, and I suppose that's meant I've become more perfectionist and therefore anxious about it, trying to anticipate every last weakness before they're identified by those I'm guessing will dislike it. Whether this is any more fun than my old private projects, I really amn't sure.
This is a bit circuitous but--I admire Jonathan Franzen--his books and also I appreciate him as a person, participating in the local Santa Cruz literary scene - e.g. he showed up at Community Writers, with his estimable partner Kathy Chetkovich, and they were both totally present and available for all the readings - and he read too, a sneak preview of a scene in Crossroads, not yet then published. Anyway. Decent bloke. Great writer. Recently I read an interview with Franzen about the new covers for his to-be-re-issued backlist, and he said this: "The message I always want a jacket to send is that the book inside is is fun to read, full of drama." So wow - I took that -- "FUN TO READ, FULL OF DRAMA" and elevated it to kind of a motto. I was a bit surprised at his comment - it's not exactly how I might characterize his stories, much as I enjoy them. I guess it depends how you define fun! But I love it, this motto. This fun approach. The buoyancy. I really don't write well when I'm depressed or excoriating myself. But - whatever floats your boat, even if it's a hook, line, and sinker! And of course my project is a light-weight one by Proustian or Tolstovian etc standards of course - it's a kid's novel. But I take it seriously too.
How to define fun... hmmm. Difficult. I find that when reading something that I'm truly enjoying, I'm smiling. Sometimes I notice this and other times I don't until my smile broadens. Same thing happens when in a great performance of music or theatre, provided I'm enjoying the content as well as the form. Movies, even very good t.v., to me, can be "fun" if I find myself smiling as I experience it (I don't mean just the laugh-out-loud stuff - I smiled through the recent Macbeth on Netflix, especially the scenes with the splendid Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth.)
Yeah! I recognize what you're saying about that smile! It's kind of a deep or complex feeling of appreciation, satisfaction with the, um, multivalent experience, even if there's a lot of - blood or suffering! Your Macbeth example w Frances McDormand fits that bill! And writers like Franzen too, or even more intense - David Foster Wallace. He's like a too-hot chili for me to enjoy - but I do appreciate his greatness. And, whether one can smile also depends on where one is at, of course. Some of those experiences are not fun at all, then. But can be worth the pain.
Maybe you might try, and find the joy, of not being so relentless in 'beating-up on yourself' Sean?
A word and a phrase that I've found resonate with me most times George drops them into a Newsletter are: 'fun' and 'goof around'.
My creative sinews seem, even as I write this, to be loosening towards writing some fresh short fiction . . . maybe there's even a working title, emerging from its hitherto hidden chrysalis . . . to set a story draft going . . . 'Chillax'?
But what if my idea of fun is relentless humiliation? ;-)
Honestly, though, Rob, I really do think a kind of strong embarrassment about my writing can be useful. If I write something truly awful (not an infrequent occurrence) and then later recognise it as such, that self-disappointment seems to burrow into the subconscious and result in writing that simply wouldn't have happened without that embarrassment. It's as though it acts as a weird mild form of creative ECT. Make sense?
The key of course is to never get so disappointed that you quit writing completely, and in this sense what I'm saying here is close enough to what George tells us. He says *welcome* the mild flaws you perceive in your writing, 'park' them, let them marinate, etc. I suppose I'm just saying, about myself at least, that the same approach can be taken with my/our very worst howlers.
Good to see you still posting here, man. Your wit is appreciated.
I can really see, more likely imagine I can see, that first line Sean:
'Today began much as yesterday. Normal for me I had breakfast, washed up, took a walk around the pond in the park and then spent three solid hours writing, as usual, something truly awful . . . '
Then 3000 pages later the Proustian ending informs the reader that they've just read the product of all those days of awfulness.
Form an orderly queue, agents and editors.
Hmmmm...All the Pretty Horses^^^^^^^^
As Lee and Mimi responded, please don’t shorten Thursdays answers. It feels like you are talking to us in person! And Lee, I like your comment how the Title or the first paragraph connects to the ending...sometimes, George?
So many ways to consider an ending. I struggled with the ending of my recent novel for too long, worrying how my reader would feel. Would she be disappointed? Bereft? Feeling cheated? Angry? God I hoped not, perhaps too much. I wanted her to close the back cover and smile. Just smile, as if to say "of course." That is a real tall order, and I don't know if I achieved it, but reports from early readers are consistent in their demand for MORE. So that tells me I ended without resolution, which is a failed ending, unless I do a sequel. But isn't that a cop out? I believe endings are as important as the first few pages. If they succeed, you live to be read another day. If they fail, game over.
I have gone completely mad in one story. Yay! I’ve revised it every day for the last five months, sometimes twice a day. At first I got a growing sense I was fixated, obsessive, compulsive, avoiding something else. Then my older, experienced, more self-accepting senior self chimed in with, “Why not go with it and see what happens?” I still work on other stuff, but this is my pet project. George, I must blame you a bit for getting me started doing it. Actually, thank you.
Many days, I change a phrase that had a little bullshit factor in it and find words that are truer to the voice of whoever was speaking, such as the change from “whomever” I just did. That micro-process lasts till today and sometimes makes significant steps forward to trueness, and other times reflects the old story of the author who puts in a comma in the morning and takes it out in the afternoon. I forget whom.
But on other days, especially well into the marathon, something else happens. Part of me goes numb. The part that wants to hold onto nice paragraphs even when they’re not doing good work. I re-read a paragraph and for the first time, I’m ready to feel the bullshit meter and I make a significant cut. This has helped me quite a bit to cut fat but not mess with the parts that are actually working to construct a natural world in the story where everything fits together and only true moving parts are left.
That last phrase brings me to the engineering metaphor you often use, George. I do think there are phases in the process of creating a story. First, the dump part. Exploration might be the best word. Some call it self-expression, but since listening to William Stafford lean away from that concept on YouTube, I like exploration or discovery better.
Then the engineering phase, where you start moving things around, still in a an exploratory mode.
Finally, the reverse engineering phase. At some point, you can look at your piece with more of the left brain and ask, “What has my unconscious delivered to me to back engineer?, to understand like the lady in Engineering removing parts from a product, one by one?”
It’s almost as if the material has come from another person for me to edit. Here, I can let go of my prejudices about my piece and my "wonderful" writing and break it down as if it were a commercial reverse-engineer project. I am in a state of maximum hovering over myself, as if in Buddhist practice. The real meaning of the story and how its moving parts can be arranged for best effect, become clearer. Before that point, maybe my knee-jerk biases cloud the picture.
So I may be insane, just not in this case, right?
Right?
I can relate to the shift you talk about where you can suddenly see the story or chapter as if someone else wrote it. The umbilical cord is severed. Though maybe it regrows! Still. It’s a good place that I enjoy. Kind of unmired.