How many times have you been absorbed by a book to such an extent that you just don't want it to end and could happily live within its confines for the foreseeable future… only for it to finish so abruptly, so quickly it feels like you've been soaring through the air only to be shot down unceremoniously?
I've just finished reading a pulp science fiction novel by the legend that is Edgar Rice Burroughs, called the
Swords of Mars, a book that eschews all sense of the word "calculated pacing" for what is a mad rush through the final fifteen pages; an ending that could have quite easily been written over a further 100 pages but for reasons of creativity or economical editing it has been shoe-horned via some dodgy exposition into about two thousand words. It's a bad ending to a good book, yet I suppose it could be forgiven - as all books of that age can be "forgiven" - for adopting a story-telling style where the destination isn't so much crept upon but charged at, a crime plenty of late 19th century and early 20th century pulp fiction is guilty of due to the medium of being serialised in pulp fiction magazines with a finite page-space to contend with.
But this is by no means something confined to early 20th century writing. I've read rushed endings more recently from writers who should know better.
Neil Gaiman - whose writing I adore - is guilty of it in
American Gods, a book which ends not particularly well compared to the rest of the book, being slipped a hospital pass where the ending had to be something world-breaking to match what had gone before. Unfortunately, in my view, it didn't and was poorer for it. Don't get me wrong, it's a good book, but I don't think it's the great book it could have been. Stephen King is another guilty party, but more guilty for his ending for the
Dark Tower series, falling into the same trap of impressive build-up, but a damp squeak at the end. When this happens, I always ask "why?", not only out of indignation and frustration as a reader, but as a writer who wants to avoid the traps other writers fall into. I reckon it’s an important lesson to learn and not just one that can be learnt from the page…
…A few years back when I was travelling around New Zealand, Sarah and I climbed the Franz Josef glacier, and our guide, a wiry Kiwi with a great ice-cutting arm, warned us the last few yards of the descent were the most dangerous - no matter where we were, be it a steep slope or level ground. You see, it's that last dash home, the final few steps of complacency or perhaps the impatience of reaching the end that can undo many a climber. The carelessness of those end steps have lost fingers or toes, broken legs and arms and one climber almost fell down a fifty foot crevice. In our case, the ice-steps at the last melted too quickly and half of our party slid down the slope, crashing into each other like a motorway pile-up. There were no injuries, thankfully, but it got our hearts racing for all the wrong reasons...
…With writing, if there are any injuries due to rushing the end or being complacent, the writer won't see them until they put the book to a publisher or the publisher misses it and it goes out to the reading public. And I guess it
is an injury when a reader has invested £8 and many hours of their time to sit through a 400 or 500 page paperback only to be disappointed by the sloppy ending.
We are always told by writing guides or tutors that beginnings are important, but how much care do we really take over our endings, even if the book isn't always about the destination but the journey there? Is it more of a crime to be instantly forgettable or memorably sloppy?
As I head towards the end of the first draft for my new Secret War novel,
The Traitor of Light, I realise the book is growing beyond expectancy. I've underestimated its length by around 30,000 words and 3 weeks, and damn me if it's not tempting to hurry it up or even skirt over the closing chapters to reach the end.
But I'm not going to. I'm going to write what needs to be written and keep the pace constant and not skimp on the ending. My final steps in this draft will be measured and careful or I just know I will slip and break something...
