I guess I would make a distinction between endings that are technically indefensible, such as the dream, rabbit hat, personality change, and endings that are difficult/artistic, such as failure and non-endings.

Hello! Congrats on your success and thanks for the wonderful tips. I found you through Teresa Frohock. I especially hate a “dead-hero-tale.” I know many people who don’t mind that, but since a book takes a considerable amount of time to read…I like to feel content, rather than sad at the end of it.

Take care,

Nora Weston

Absolutely. In 2008, Ryan Condal sold his spec script Galahad for $500,000. The script is extraordinarily well written, but the hero—Galahad—dies in the end. In an interview I’ll publish on my Lonely Keyboard site early next year, he says: “That’s the first thing the studio changed.”

Even if your storytelling abilities are outstanding enough to generate interest in a dead-hero tale, you will likely be asked—or told—to bring your dead hero back to life.

And it makes sequels so much easier.

Sure, these things can sometimes be made to work, and I cite a few examples of stories that manage to pull it off. Commercially speaking, though, you’re fighting the tide, and are likely to face requests (in the publishing world) or demands (in the film world) for change. Worse, prospective buyers might simply pass on the project instead.

In the majority of cases where I see these things attempted by unpublished / unproduced writers, they not only don’t work—they’re completely inappropriate, and lack any kind of setup.

When they are attempted (successfully or otherwise) in print or film—which is rare—the writer is almost invariably well established. The Mist, for example, was (as near as I can tell) Stephen King’s ninety-ninth published work. In short, the things we’re talking about are risky moves for anyone—and often fatal for first-timers.

Rabbit hats, or as I’ve commonly heard deus ex machina’s, are always unacceptable. I totally agree. Same with personality transplants. Bad Dream/Nutjob endings are also unacceptable, unless you’ve been playing with audience expectations, like in Life on Mars.

On cliffbangers and failure, what happened to tragedy? This used to be a staple of literature. I think these endings need to be set up properly, but I find many movies today almost get boring, because I have no worry that our hero will live and save the day. I’d rather watch a movie where that isn’t assured. Your example of The Mist, well, that ending stuck with me for days.

More on this, I feel like writers resort to the artistic endings mainly because they feel they can’t make artistic statements in the body of their work so they have to make them at the end. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing.

Finally, non-endings work if they thematically wrap up the work. I’m thinking of Hemingway, or The Grapes of Wrath.