I've been sitting on this short story for a while. It was a submission for a contest (not here) last year but feedback i was given on it was that it reads like a set up for something longer and they want to know how it "really" ends. I submitted it to another place, and got basically the same feedback. How does it end. Plot: 2 best friends get drafted into a war as their kingdom fights off the creatures that live beyond the walls. One friend doesnt want to go to war and sympathizes with the creatures. The other friend wants to go to war because she is an orphan of war . How i have it ending is that the friend who doesnt want to go to war reveals that one of his parents belongs "out there" and that he's half. The friend who wants war tells him to leave the kingdom and never to come back. And he does. (I thought this vague ending was fine) If i were to continue this, i have these possible alt. endings: She gave him a headstart before she starts hunting him and catches him They fight and he kills her They fight and he lets her kill him His parent/loved one kills her before she could kill him and lets him escape She decides to let him go She decides to go with him
It depends on how you have created their personalities, and how you want to resolve the conflict between them, which in turn depends on what you want to say.
i wanted to leave that up to the reader, tbh. and not as a way to cop-out the ending. I wanted readers to fill in the blanks; if they were in this situation would they try to understand their friend? would they choose kingdom over friendship/war over love. you they hunt down their friend or at least give them a shot at life even if that life isnt something that they agree with. thats why i didnt want to write a definite ending. but now i feel like i have no choice because any one of those endings above "gives an answer" and i dont want MY answer to be the answer (idk if im making sense)
What if you split the difference. She says farewell as amicably as she can muster, gives him a head start, then sets off on the hunt and that's the end. Personally, I would find that more satisfying than him just leaving, but you still get your ambiguous ending.
Yes, that makes sense. Ambiguous endings can inspire all kinds of thinking in the reader, as long as the ending doesn't baffle the reader. Here's an article on the pros and cons of ambiguous endings that comes out in favour of them: When is an Ambiguous Ending for a Novel Justified?
How climactic was the original ending? No matter the options provided, how it feels can convey whether the reader sees it as an ending, or just a cliff hanger.
I think the short story format is more suitable to ambiguous endings. Go with your gut feelings and ignore the rest.
Got another rejection on this story..... Complete with feedback that said the same as the others. They feel like it should be longer... That it shouldn't end the way it does. So it looks like ill be revising the ending after all....
Must be a really good story to get so much personalized feedback, JT. If a single reviewer makes a remark, one can ignore it with aplomb. But three... happy revising.
It sounds like a great set up! Let us know on the thread when it eventually and inevitably gets published so we can have a read. From the feedback it also seems like you don't make the one character having to leave emotionally resonant enough. If it plucked your heart from your chest to read that one character had to leave --- because even if its open ended, the reader knows what happens next matters not because the leaving is in of itself a payoff and an unfixable tragedy --- then maybe you'd get to stick to your guns and not write on beyond it. They want it longer? Work more depth in earlier. Just an idea. That's what I would like as a reader.
Truth be told, I think the vague ending is fine too, but you might not want to listen to me, because I've received that criticism before too, lol. I guess, looking at your options, that none of them are weird enough. Those are all the expected options. What you could do is write out a whole bunch more ideas, even the dumb ones, at least to get them out of your head. Here's some of my ideas: 1. bring in another one of your characters, and have that person's motivation mess with your MCs. 2. have him be killed by his parent, and she finds the body after. 3. have the guy be forcefully jailed to prevent him from leaving. 4. have her convince him he's wrong. 5. she changes her mind and tries to make peace with the beings. 6. he becomes a cult leader that makes everyone worship the beings. 7. she leads a crusade against them, defeating his parent in front of him. 8. she captures his parent and makes the parent stand trial. 9. he stands trial as a traitor. 10. aliens. 11. the two band together to stop the war. 12. the two band together to create another enemy so that the war won't be focused on each other's people. 13. he pretends to agree to stay but ends up getting her killed by sending out a secret message of the city's weakness. 14. she pretends to let him go but tells people his identity and lets them kill him. I don't know if any of those are any good, but hopefully they can help inspiration.
