my friend told me it was horrible, not horrible as in bad writing, horrible in the "how could you do that?!" sense. Originally i wanted the reader to feel betrayed, but theyre right, it is evil to do to the character. Throughout the story, my main character has a recurring nightmare of being attached to a machine in a dark room. At what would be the end, with the happy ending and all. There's a few blank pages. Then the real ending comes, where the main character finds himself in the room hooked up to a machine, but its real this time. A few doctors are hovering over him. They scream with joy, and announce that he's been in a coma since he was 15. They explain he was in a car crash while in a moving truck to his new home, where the story begins. Refusing to believe the nonsense, he vainly tries to reach hsi friends who dont exist. once he is alone for the night, he turns off the machine keeping him alive, not wanting to live in his life. is that cliche in any way? or disgusting as some people put it?
Its like the matrix. Unless it is a part of the plot (coming out more strongly and less subconsciously) then it is a "Dorthy" ending, like in the Wizard of Oz, discovering it is all a dream. I don't have much respect for that particular type of ending. It really insults the mental ability of the reader. However; if it does play into the whole story (for example, your character keeps "finding" parts of machines, or something,) then it might work. I think it would be cool to have a character who is a mental patient put away for "hearing" voices through the radio, only to find he actually does hear voices over the radio, and such. It takes some tricks, but a story like that might be interesting.
yeah the dream ending was what i was trying to avoid. in his dreams for what he believes to be 'real', the dreams are always of him in the room and whatnot. In the story he sings a song that hints at this, and thats how the story ends, with the song. or i thought i could change it too. just now i thought of this new ending. after all that, it turns out the antagonist played a trick on him. The bad guy winning in the end is the whole theme of the first half of the story, so it might be cool to bring that back. so should the bad guy win??
I think what I forgot to say is that the Dreams really sap the energy from the thing. It needs to be physical some how. Bad guys win all the time. In life, mostly the bad guy wins. I guess that is why writers write it so the good guy wins. Maybe write a time-line and post it. I really can't visualize it because I You have given no Motivation for the MC being stuck in a Coma (dreaming this all). What and why is "the bad guy," and why would he want play tricks or to win. You haven't gone over that. Explaining that motivation needs to be the bulk of the story. Not song lyrics. Oh. Is this a musical?
okay in the story the character is a songwriter, and the book is filled with them, so i guess its kind of a musical.
It was a show that killed off a popular character. However, the audience really didn't like that, so the writers changed that his death had been a dream. Then, the show died promptly.
i think the ending is great. there are so many endings that pissed me off. like this french book where the main character's wife dies of some incurable disease near the end and he gets all heart broken. it realy made me cry and i hated the ending. but it is still my favorite book of all time. that's not just an exageration, if someone had a gun to my head i'd still say it was the best. so i think you should keep your ending. it dosnt always have to turn out right for it to be a good book, and that ending sounds like a real twist for an unsuspecting reader.
What adamant is leaving out here is that the show erased an entire season with this stunt, in the last scene of the last episode of the season. It was quite possibly the tackiest piece of writing ever seen on television.
Yeah... whateverness, it doesn't deserve to be remembered anyway. The only reason I know about it is a bunch of VH1 shows.
Here are my thoughts on it - and you (and others) might completely disagree. But, I think your ending is good. as mentioned previously, it is definitely one that would be remembered. However, I think its effectiveness would depend on the story it is connected to. It would be great for an emo teenage thriller or horror novel. Not so much for a baby sitter's club story. Also, if it serves no other purpose than to be a "surprise ending" then I think it'll read as a "...and then she woke up" cliche ending. With something so...well...sad (or cruel) I would expect there would need to be some kind of reason presented or moral being taught in order to justify the extending of your story. The reason be just that - it extends your story. That's fine, as long as it is not "tricking" the reader into reading a separate story all together. The last scene of the sixth sense is a twist ending but it's quick and it ties up a story line that has been woven throughout the main plot making it a very satisfying addition to a related story. Anyway, I hope that all makes sense and helps. It's definitely a haunting idea but it'll take some fancy finger work to pull it off correctly
Maybe its because I've always liked the Twilight Zone, but having him haunted by horrible nightmares of a machine, only to wake up to find that his life has been a dream and then kill himself because he doesn't want to go on living without the people from his dream is an awesome ending right up there with 'all the people have pig faces.' But that's if you do it right. Have the people in his dream be helpful and compassionate, have them try to help him sort things out and have them be greatly fleshed out, and then for the last bit after he's woken up, maybe a chapter or two of him just out of the coma, all of the people seem drab and lifeless, maybe even his parents only took care of him to keep appearances and not out of love. And then when you have him kill himself, make it not so much a sad or a happy ending, but a melancholic one, where he perhaps returns to his dream, only now he's given the satisfaction of being back to where he's loved and with the people who love him, only it's tempered by the realization that it's not real. He'll just be sitting in the hospital room in the dark, muttering the song to himself, and walk over and flip the switch and then sit back down. He then wakes up in his bed with his girlfriend hanging over him, maybe he's been passed out for the last few days and she was worried, he kept having nightmares. And then he gives her a hug and a kiss and smiles, "Yeah, it was all just a bad dream" Sure it's still a dream, but it's not so much a "everything was a lie so we could bring back a character" thing, and depending on how you've been doing the story (I'm assuming his nightmares have been a big part? Not sure where a bad guy comes into it though) it would make for a very memorable ending.
good idea. but i'm pretty sure it's already taken. the UK TV show 'Life on Mars' did the same thing with it's finale.
