Closing (can it be?) Thoughts on Endings
Outlining... hindsight... creating a loop...
Why do they put the sticker right over her face, and block out part of the title? Sticker-person having a bad day… or thoughtless book design? Or something to think about later?
Creating has a serendipitous quality. It has to. Along with qualities of grinding, exhaustion, and joy. (What would you add to these?)
Every so often we touch in on that foundational principle of writing: “pay attention.” And what that might mean.
The serendipity might pass right by. But it is there.
As you know, if you’re a regular reader of the Unschool (and if you’re new I’ll quickly fill you in), in my current novel-project I did something that I don’t usually do, and wrote my way through to what I’ll call a “skinny” ending. In between the opening, the inciting incident—that is, that turn of events that create a moving and dynamic story—and the end, it’s all a bit thin.
Then I read Black Woods Blue Sky, Eowyn Ivey’s latest, with its beautiful ending. I’ll be posting a close read of that novel soon. It’s not just the ending that’s noteworthy.
I also wrote a piece about multi-character intersection—which is what happens with more than one POV character at the point of crisis and climax.
In the midst of all this, before I began working on this project, I’ve been studying Christian mystics.
I read disparate books simultaneously. I follow digressions, willingly and happily, and not to procrastinate. (I’ve had to learn: this is not procrastination.) Picking up a book, researching some half-question, allowing bits and pieces into my conscious thought, and the occasional deeper dive, is most often in response to some sub-conscious… urge.
It feels best not to describe it at all, but to just follow and do. At times it turns out to be nothing at all, to be red herring and dead end. But often, it leads to fruit. There’s a Christmas morning delight when such an urge connects with the work at hand. Serendipitous.
I found myself in the midst of a dense read, chapters into a book titled Julian of Norwich, Theologian, by Denys Turner. I’ve read a number of books about Julian, in preparation for creating a picturebook. Working on more than one project at a time adds its own quality: the stories and approaches and the wisps of thought begin to work together in ways that—again—I try not to question much.
But reading pages about St. Julian’s oft-quoted (and maybe mindlessly repeated) “All shall be well” (yes, it’s become a t-shirt thing) took a sudden corner in Turner’s book. I recognized that his words connect directly with how I’ve been trying to articulate this enigma of creating “end” in a story.
Turner unpacks Julian’s use of the word ‘behovely’ to speak of sin in the world, which brings to mind that (almost-?) exhausted discussion of “why is there bad stuff? How does God allow this if He’s so powerful?” The etymology of this word ‘behovely’ translates to “fits” or is “just so.”
Julian saw “just so” as part of the narrative of life—the narrative of time and our world. (Stay with me if you’re not religious at all! Think of this as a way to envision Story, and a way to work with shaping it.) Time, to her mind, was ‘all time,’ from beginning to end of world. And her behovely got its “meaning from within a narrative.” The “just so,” the quality of fittingness, is birthed and lives, within the story.
Turner explicates Julian’s theology in great detail; he views her as theologian over mystic. Please note that this is not an iteration of that thought that ‘all things happen for a reason.’ It’s not that simple. Consider the fact that Julian had initial visions that gave her material to work with for more than two decades of writing (her Revelations is the first book written by a woman in Europe). I can’t go into the pages that Turner works through; it’s too much for my purpose here.
Here, I’m wanting only to try to grasp the part of this that resonates as writing-related and—specifically—what it says to me about what I’ve been wrestling with to write a solid ending.
In a nutshell—let’s make it a hazelnut for anyone who is a reader of Julian—it’s the idea that even though life might not make sense at the time, as we live through it, in the end it might still not make sense—not in how we might wish—but there will be a fittingness.
Because when we (characters) reach the end of time (story) we can look back, we will gain a sense of hindsight. Hindsight is key and has a distinct place: it’s only at the end that we can see pieces fall into place. At least—and here’s the caveat—as much as they can fall into place.
As much as can be understood. There is always some remaining mystery.
That’s worthy of pause. Is there a bit of mystery left at the end of your story? For the characters? For the reader? For you? (Less for you—that’s the deal. Mostly for characters. What do you think?)
The closing of Ivey’ Black Woods Blue Sky left me mulling for days. Slowly, pieces came together. Then again, some small threads straggle out. To pick at, to pull.
Yet another writing principle
This comes up often in Unschool posts. And we question.
One principle for story-ends is that of not bringing in new elements in the last portion of a story—some say the last quarter or even third.
This principle is about surprise versus shock. As in, you want surprise but not shock. But life is lived in a cumulative way. Stories are created in the same. And what of the expected-unexpected and the unexpected-expected?
I ponder this as I age: in the end we might understand how that “new” connects or reconnects with what has transpired before. I ponder the weaving, the assimilation, the shapes that grow and cast shadows. I’m 60 and my mother is about to turn 90. I’m seeing—now that I’m looking for it—how both of us are experiencing this. It’s hard to see that cumulative as it grows right before us.
Turner uses the example of music. He writes: “a student of mine… complained that Mozart’s music is just too ‘predictable’… [yet] everything in Mozart’s music is supremely unpredictable… everything in Mozart’s music is supremely retrodictable, so transparently retrodictable as to create an illusion of utter predictability and obviousness. When a cadence or a modulation is completed in an unexpected way, you are both surprised and know immediately why it had to be just so, and how its being just so reveals anew everything that precedes it.”
“Narratival completeness can rarely be anticipated, and the full meaning of any episode can never be known except post factum within the completed story. Even if you have reason to be confident that a particular event within the narrative is behovely, you may not be able to see how it is until the end…” (p. 46)
In my recent post on writing the end—I’m hesitant to say to the end, but I did do that, however elliptical it was—I spoke of my need to feel I “deserve” or have “earned” the writing of the ending. That is, I feel there are certain points I need to see, to experience, to share, before I can “arrive” at the end.
Deserve. Earn. Arrive. What is your word for this?
According to Julian’s thinking about life and faith (all writers need faith—it’s the only way we can exist and work), it’s only with hindsight that we can see clearly.
We live and work, knowing that this end piece is something we cannot have… until we do. Only then can we turn back to see how and where we’ve gone. Where we’ve been.
This so resonated for me, for my writing. What is it to put together the pieces that create “hindsight?”and to know that we can’t see it at the time, but must go on…
Outlining
What does this say about outlining? I’ve never been able to outline—not from beginning to end. I have to actually be in the act of writing to evoke character, to build setting, to understand plot.
And now, I’m beginning to understand more about this urge to create “end” as I do—that piece of being deserved or earned. I’m seeing the piece of “hindsight,” the piece of “fittingness.” Writing the end isn’t in the ending; it’s in the stepping away.
I’ve always encouraged writers I’ve worked with not to cut anything from an early draft, or even a later draft. Not to cut until they understand their own need to include whatever it was.
Creating is about faith, surely. Much of this work, my work, I’ve done by intuition. It makes writing about the process difficult: how to make sense of feeling our way through a dark room. How to describe it to others in a way that might be useful to them. (Watch that thing on the left—feels like a sharp corner! No, not the left close to the door… the other left, farther in… Oh! You found it. Or your kneecap did…) It’s like that.
The gift of hindsight
In Julian’s theology, it is hindsight—only attainable with that stepping away, after time—that is the beginning to understanding the “all shall be well.” This doesn’t mean that all is good. It only means that the pieces fit. That, when the thing is truly done, it will have created that loop of hindsight.
You may not even see it, or some of it, once you’ve reached that place; you need to sit with it awhile before you do. You might see the mystery that remains alongside the work, too. There should still be a remnant of that
Which is what we want of our stories’ ends, right? Mystery is what denotes the work as inspired. (Confusion is something else!)
And faith
It does take faith to create. To write your way to the end of the narrative in your mind, then to hold it in your hands, and to sit with it—take a breath—and look back to pronounce it is good or it is finished.
Serendipity, paying attention, faith and time. A four strand braid.
In my first attempt at writing a novel, I was so determined to make everything fit into my perfect ending that I ruined the rest of the book. With my second, I let go of the reins and had, oh so much, more fun! Thank you for sharing your journey with creating a loop!
Thanks for these thoughts. I've never been able to outline a full novel. I have to write a draft to figure out what I'm going to say, then another one to get closer. Looking forward to your thoughts about Black Woods Blue Sky!