I have a question about #5 [on 5 Pickles to Write Yourself Into]. Is a garbled resolution the same as an ambiguous resolution—one where there’s no ‘happily-ever-after’ ending? Meaning an ending where there’s no clear winner or loser, perhaps reflecting the shades of gray found in real life? I feel my ending does make sense, but might not be satisfying for a reader who wants the good guy to be 100% triumphant in the end.
—Chris
Excellent question, Chris.
The whole point of writing a story is the ending: you’re flinging the reader into space to land with a shock on their own epiphany about the meaning of life. Lots of readers are happy for that to be simple reassurance that life makes sense and will work out for them somehow.
But there’s a great deal more to be discovered about life than that, which the writer is not here to explain. The writer is here to fling that reader. The reader will find their own epiphany if you just give them the proper launch.
And that complex epiphany—the epiphany you aim toward through more than one lens, like three-dimensional motion viewed through two disparate eyes—that’s the epiphany that’s truly profound.
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—Helen Gallagher,
Seattle P-I
The Art & Craft of Story