The Never-Ending Ending! by Ron Barak

My writing “career” began with…a dare.  An avid reader, especially of the mystery and thriller genres, I had…dared.  Dared to…write?  No way!  Dared to criticize a prominent “A-List” repeat New York Times bestselling mystery/thriller author.  That’s what.  That’s all.  Why not?  I was just…a backseat driver.  Safely ensconced in my…anonymity.  Like all backseat drivers.  Much easier to criticize than…to do.

What exactly was I criticizing?  What had “my” A-Lister done that was so…terrible?  In my (humble) opinion, he had done the unforgiveable.  He had worked a “bait and switch” on me (and all of his other faithful fans).  And make no bones about it, I was—and continue to be—a huge and loyal fan of this hugely successful writer.  Whose books sell in the millions.  And are frequently made into equally successful major movie hits.

What was this “ugly” bait and switch of which I speak?  What had this bestseller done to incur and suffer my wrath?  Written a thriller with…no thrill?  No, not really.  Written a mystery with…no appealing answer to the mystery?  Not at all.  In fact, that was the problem.  He had written the ultimate mystery.  One that provided…no answer.  No ending!  Just…“Gotta go, bye.”  Huh?  What?  Wait!

What kind of a novelist puts a mystery/thriller out there, sucks me in, “makes” me read his work with great expectation and anticipation.  Spending hours of my time doing that.  And, then…nothing!  No more ink.  No more pages.  No more words.  No solution.  No answer.  No closure.  Just…silence.

Now, c’mon, silence isn’t all that bad.  But…I like to choose when I want that silence.  Not to have it heaped on me when I least expect it.

Not right!  Right?  The crass audacity to tell “me” that if I want answers I’m going to have to buy and read still another book.  The…sequel.

No warning.  Building my expectations.  Rushing me to the finish line.  Only to find…there is no finish line!  I was…mad.  I felt like I had been deceived.  With great excitement and enthusiasm, I had bought the book.  Committed myself.  Invested.  Bought in.  Read right along.  Plotted my own ending and waited to see how that compared to the author’s ending.  Coming to a theater near me soon!

Just like cattle led to slaughter.  No cliffhanger.  Just the cliff.  No finish.  No closure.  Just disappointment.  Feeling I had been played.  Like a fiddle!  So much for…the great read.  If I wanted to know what happened, what the outcome was, I was going to have to buy and read another (great?) book.  One for the price of two!

Was this “behavior” really so bad?  Hey, if the one book was a great read, why not two?  How bad could that be?  And, besides, if “my” A-Lister had not committed his unforgiveable sin, my writing “career” (probably?) would not have been jump started (given that the response to my “outrage” was a dare from friends to show I could do it better).

And, so, irony of ironies, after having achieved my moment of glory—a debut novel that achieved two weeks of number one bestselling “hard boiled mystery” ranking on Amazon.com (print) and Kindle (electronic)—I am now writing my second novel.  A sequel, no less!

Same behavior that launched my second career as a “famous” novelist, an A-List wannabe, allowing me to quit my day job as a practicing attorney and instead write full time?  Hardly!  “Hardly” what?  Same behavior as “my” A-List author?  Allowing me to quit my day job?  Actually, both “hardly.”  My sequel is “hardly” a bait and switch.  And I haven’t hardly quit my day job, my “bestseller” status notwithstanding.

However, as I work on my sequel, I have had occasion to focus on my “criticism” of sequels in general.  Where are they fair game?  And not?

A great sequel to a great novel is...great.  So long as the great novel is itself…great.  So long as it delivers everything it was supposed to deliver, including…a great ending.  Giving me, as I read on, what I expected to be given.  An ending.  A great ending.  Satisfaction.  Payback for my loyal following.  Letting me see how it ended, and how that contrasted with how I thought it would end.  Not “Gotcha!  Want an ending?  Well, you’ll have to wait a year or two until I write one—the sequel—if I actually figure one out and write it.  And if you buy that one too.”

Does that mean that to be great, a novel has to have a detailed ending, with all of the loose ends tied up and buttoned down in pretty pink paper?  No.  Of course not.  So what’s fair, then, and what’s not?

The answer is not black and white, not hard and fast.  It’s…common sense.  When expected to define “obscenity,” the U.S. Supreme Court deferred, acknowledging that it couldn’t really do that, adding, however, that such a definition wasn’t needed, that the Court would know it when it saw it.

It’s one thing to leave a few open loose ends to segue into a sequel that provides a return visit to endearing characters from the original novel.  It’s another thing to do a bait and switch, to leave the readers of the original novel hanging out to dry, their expectations unreasonably unmet.  In the context of appropriate literature, that is obscene!

A great novel, and a great novelist, must provide reasonable closure.  And perhaps then bring the reader back for something new because he loved the original so much he is pining for…more.  A great sequel.  The one I am hopefully now writing. :-)  What goes around, comes around!

A small world story, to learn how our fearless leader, Johanna Harness, was putting all of this far more succinctly and eloquently as I was struggling with how I wanted to say all of this, check it out:  http://gemstatewriters.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/satisfy-me.