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Lincoln (Lincoln_brown)
Username: Lincoln_brown

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 138.217.64.148
Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2012 - 07:24 am:   

What do you all think of ambiguous endings to stories, particulary short stories?
I love them, when done right. The Laird Barron collection I've just finished, 'Occultation', has a couple, and they really worked for me.
Any thoughts, comments?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2012 - 08:45 am:   

It's hard pleasing everyone. I have a bunch of readers - some of you guys - who prefer nothing to be explained. But others folk I know - less versed in the genre - prefer me to tie up loose ends. I'm thinking of including two endings in everything I write in future:

Genre fans read part A.

Everyone else read part B.}
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2012 - 08:48 am:   

Actually, I think the horror writer's trick is treading a fine line between revealing too much and too little. Tales like the The Willows and The Colour out of Space do this perfectly. Too little and it's obscure,; too much and it's heavyhanded.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 1.169.140.162
Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2012 - 09:50 am:   

I'd generally agree with that, Gary.

It can still work at either end of the spectrum, though, I think. Robert Aickman's stories are an obvious example of the 'lack of explanation' type that work despite having any kind of conclusion (in most cases). They are suffused with a wonderful sense of strangeness that, for me, is its own reward, regardless of any final explanation.

Most readers do seem to want 'tidy' endings. Nothing wrong with that, but nothing wrong with being more open-ended and enigmatic, either. I can enjoy either approach. The main thing for me is that the story is well-written and moves me in some way.
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Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 62.255.207.128
Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2012 - 10:00 am:   

I love ambiguity or great subtlety when it comes to endings. My favourites are those that do explain or are logical but are mere whispers, delicate, easy to miss.

Brent Heywards's wonderful "Filaria has a delightfully ambiguous ending. James' Joyce's "Dubliners" short stories all have perfect yet subtle-to-the-point-of-fragile endings. I also love the closing seconds of the film "Another Earth", a shock that is more like a gentle kiss than a blow.

And I am, of course, a great Gary Fry fan and any of his endings will do for me.

Cheers
Terry
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Lincoln (Lincoln_brown)
Username: Lincoln_brown

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 138.217.64.148
Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2012 - 11:40 am:   

In my experience, readers of more hardcore, in your face, horror, prefer everything to be explained - and if it isn't, they don't rate the story.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2012 - 02:34 pm:   

Terry, lots of people eagerly await my ending.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2012 - 04:03 pm:   

An ambiguous ending I think of as being different from obfuscation throughout, or a muddled close; a story that deliberately never makes itself quite clear to the reader, like Aickman's "The Hospice." An ambiguous ending, however, can be perfectly crystal clear, like the story all the way through—but it's fulfillment bears two or more interpretations.

Going back to a previous thread, the story that springs to mind because it's fresh, is Thurber's "A Couple of Hamburgers."
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 108.221.136.29
Posted on Monday, May 17, 2021 - 08:03 pm:   

God, by contrast... here I sound like a complete fucking idiot... shut up already! My god, Craig, you sound like a fucking twat!

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