Fairytales

Advice
September 18, 2015
Nicholas Sparks
September 26, 2015
Advice
September 18, 2015
Nicholas Sparks
September 26, 2015

Once upon a time, when you were younger, your parents probably regurgitated fairytales to you the way your baby brother regurgitated his applesauce after meals. Vomit didn’t create the most favorable patterns on clothes, nor did those fairytales fabricate into any piece of work with immense literary renown. Perhaps this can be attributed to the dearth of authenticity in them, or just the sheer predictability of most fairytales. Most of these stories start with the generic “once upon a time” and end with “and they all lived happily ever after.” Closure for five year olds that might not translate to such when the reader is 25. Truth is, closure is good. Most good stories (novels, films etc) give closure to at least several of the story lines and conflicts that arise throughout the piece’s development. But complete closure, is where the problem arises. Readers like to wonder. When ending a piece, whether a novel or a short story, or even a poem, give closure in the form of a big house, but leave a trail of stepping stones that bloom from it’s backyard and lead into, perhaps, a forest. Let the reader wander into the forest, by him or herself and wonder about the story further. Generic endings are good for fairytales and real life. When writing, try and find something in between. The end.