Going Out With a Bang
on endings in fiction and The Justiceers
Fiction has been my happy place for the longest of time. It’s such a beautiful space of human, artistic, creative expression built for witnessing and alchemical healing of our most hidden parts. I am a more complete and wise human that I ever would have been without the guiding presence of meaningful storytelling in my life.
My favorite books, films, and television shows — those primary modes I grew up consuming fiction through the solitary means available to me, were not the easy ones — they changed me, all of them. I felt like a better person after experiencing and digesting their themes.
I just finished my initial, hard-earned pass on the novel I’ve been grinding out for months, and chose to end it in a way which calls to every little bit of my preferences for storytelling. Yet, I’ve been long aware that my own likes in this matter very quite a bit from large portions of folks who love fiction.
There is a whole act in most stories, or part, or at least chapter — not all — where there is a lot of coddling done after the climax of the story. Where the ultimate fate of characters are prescribed, the themes are solidified and respoken in plain, another little story arc gets tacked on the end. Usually, its either entirely focused on the thematics, or its superfluous as all hell; simply explaining superficialities about the plot which extend beyond the actual narrative.
All of my favorite stories end, right at the end, and don’t bother with the bullshit. Some films I’ve watched, books I’ve read, etc. have had what I would consider the perfect ending about 10 minutes or whole couple chapters before the end of the story. There have been these fade-to-black moments in some movies, where I’m like ‘don’t you do it’, ‘roll credits and you’ve made my favorite shit ever’. Then they fade back in and wax poetic and tell me how to feel in a way that seems entirely unnecessary and undermining of the story’s ultimate effectiveness. They ruin a perfect ending.
Yet, you can’t just pull the plug mindlessly. The work has to have been done ahead of time to preemptively wrap up the themes of your story, give resolutions to your characters arcs, and tie up any loose ends that aren’t served leaving open past the end of your story. It has to be done right, where everything is coded within the ending and the build-up which will give the audience what they need to walk away and put the pieces together themselves. I’ll be enhancing this effect on my enrichment pass-through coming up, but really, the channel did a lot of the work for me. I wasn’t aware the last chapter would be the end until the moment I started it, and I didn’t realize there wouldn’t be an epilogue until the I had written the final line.
It’s sad to me too, trust. There’s a part of me that wants more; doesn’t want to let go, and wants to be coddled with these characters.
But these are the endings that give me goosebumps. They are the ones that stick in my head for days and weeks afterwards. They’re the experiences with fiction which alchemize the entire experience of consummation by engaging me to do the work on deciding what it means for myself, having the opportunity to tell my own part of the tale; what happens after.
Those best stories are personal to the creator, and the audience. They connect with parts of us we don’t even understand, those we share with each other, and draw out the introspection which begin the process of doing so.
Regardless, I do want to thank anyone who has or does read The Justiceers for taking part in the experience, and I do want to stress; that was the end.
I love it, even if I know it’s going to piss people off a little, even if it spends exactly zero amount of effort to help people define their own personal meaning for the events of the climax. In fact, that’s a big part of why I love it.
The whole last part was kind of perplexing me as I wrote it, since this story was not mapped out by my conscious mind, and I’ve just channeled it without pre-planning and from a pace of flexibility the whole time. I just kept thinking about how high and sustained the intensity level was throughout the part, and thought it was unique, not really understanding the mechanism. Then fucking chapter 12 came out of me, 3500 words of purest action mixed with deepest thematic exposition, helping realize that basically the whole final part is that. There wasn’t even a scene break in 12, and still needs a lot of love because it was such a headache to write. Then the last chapter came out that way too. The break for a second music track I put in there won’t be in the paper copy, that’s another straight endurance run of a scene.
Anyway, all of that, laced with these really profoundly sad and healing moments of resolution, along with how Miriam’s state at the end felt so strangely transcendent to me — in that I don’t know why I love it so much, or why it gives me such goosebumps — never once feeling like the pedal gets let off, I finally understand what I was feeling through the whole part.
The entirety of Part Six is a sustained climax to the story, in retrospect. Which is kinda crazy-cool in my opinion. For that endurance run of a climax to end on such a fascinating and haunting crescendo is my favorite thing ever.
It’s the kind of ending that makes me want to go right back to the beginning. Which makes it so that if a sequel were to come out, I’d be all up over that shit and drooling for it. Even if you know I’ll not give people the candy-cane version of it they want, skipping all the shit they really hope I’d explain for them, and just tell a whole new story of open questions. Cause that’s how you do it!
In fact, my next story, which I’m almost done with the first chapter of — does take place in The Periphery and The Justiceer anthology — and will not have Arthur and Miriam in it at all. Space is big y’all, that would be stupid for it to only be them. Plus, I’m tired of their asses right now, and this is going to be straight up horror. I was too good at all that stuff in the last one.
Thank you for reading, and thank you for taking part in my art in whatever way you do; even if you’ve just been watching like its reality TV where you get to see someone lose their mind. I get it! That is fun.
Will be disappointing you going forward if that’s the case however. No matter what The Justiceers spoke of regarding prophetic bs that may or may not come true, or already has, one thing was most completely accurate; writing that story changed me, it integrated my fractured parts back into me, it restored my faith and brought me to a place of knowing regarding my ultimate protection as a consciousness in this universe, and it healed me.
I’m going to do my best to see that it reaches others someday as well, and offers a chance for a bit of the same.
