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Thursday 22 February 2018

A nice surprise and the problem of endings

I am really happy because today I received my copy of The Dark Angel, the latest novel by one of my favourite authors, Elly Griffiths. I entered a prize draw on her Facebook page and was one of the lucky winners. When it arrived I hugged it!

I am sure I've spoken about Elly Griffiths' books before but for me they tick a lot of boxes. This series (the Ruth Galloway series) is set in Norfolk (the land of my ancestors), includes archaeology, crime and paganism, all of interest to me. There is also humour. I cannot wait to read this one but as I started reading a new book two days ago it will have to for wait a few days.

Back into the world of writing I have been busy editing and have put in a couple of submissions. A friend who reads some of my stories mentioned that she likes ends tied up when she reads and she mentioned one story of mine she'd read that she felt ended too quickly, so I've been thinking about endings a lot. I sometimes do like to leave the reader with questions - room to imagine an ending for themselves. Maybe some readers just have preferences for neat endings. I would say that  I do struggle with endings at times and I wonder if leaving some loose ends is a cop out. What do you think? Do you like to a concrete ending or do you like working out what could happen to the main character after you finish a story?

A similar comment came from a lady at my writing group about one of my stories. The lady wanted to know what happened next, but there was no next in that story because going on would have spoiled it for me - too neat and would have dragged things out. I know you shouldn't end a story too quickly. I think maybe that is the problem and this is an area I need to work on with some of my stories. Obviously the more feedback I get the better idea I will have if this is a problem or just that some readers prefer everything neatly tied up.

Do you find endings difficult? Please do comment. I'd love to hear from you.

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