Good Endings

People can tell the strangest, weirdest, most surprising and perplexing stories. Such is the nature of the blank page. We humans who call ourselves writers invent all kinds of rules about how to form sentences and tell stories, about inciting incidences and rising tension and believable characters – but the page does not recognize these rules. The page says: Write absolutely anything you want and I will accept it. I do not care from whose hands those words came. They are all the same to me, all as real, all as true. I will not color them good or bad; those judgments lie only in the mind of the reader.

The strangest thing about the stories we tell is that no matter how bizarre or dark or unreal a tale may be, there will be an audience for it. Sometimes the audience is small, but it’s an audience just the same. In fact, sometimes the audience is just one person: the one telling the story. When a story has an audience of one, the author rarely shares it purposefully. To them, it’s not a story at all. It’s reality. The story is usually about what is possible and, more importantly, what is not possible. This is called being realistic.

I have been one such storyteller. If something did not exist in my life, if I could not hold it in my hand, look at it, drive it, live in it, then it seemed only realistic that I never would. I wasn’t happy about this, but since I did not understand exactly how those things I wanted would come to me, I could only assume they wouldn’t. Which they didn’t, and didn’t, and didn’t – until, one day, there they’d be, I’d have them, and I’d think, “Well, that was fortunate.”

That was fortunate is a most unsatisfying ending to a story. It’s meaningless gratitude, random and unrepeatable. I like satisfying endings. I like it when something is learned, when someone has changed, when our hero is headed in a new direction. Maybe my favorite ending of all is when the hero finally sees the blank page for what it is, understands it has always been this open, this accepting, and that the next story he tells upon it will be his choice alone.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com