IWSG; The Problem with Lengthy Endings in Sci-Fi and Horror

 

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I apologise for posting so late again and having to double-up again between the IWSG entry and the weekly entry for A Far Out Fantastic Site. My excuse this time is that I had family from out of town visiting all week last week and so I got very little writing done. I was fortunate to fit in the little time that I had to at least plan this post and get some typing of revisions done for “Virtual Voodoo”, one of the many short stories to be included in my upcoming book, "Bad Apps"! I’ll talk about that story and the problem with long endings in a little bit. First let me start with the IWSG part of the post, which mostly consists of my response to the optional monthly question, in case anyone out there is not a science fiction or horror fan and would get bored by my talk about the story. 

IWSG Monthly Question: Writer’s Fears

The IWSG question for May is: Some common fears writers share are rejection, failure, success, and lack of talent or ability. What are your greatest fears as a writer? How do you manage them?

Recently, I’ve had two fears as a writer that are, so far, my greatest. One is a fear of not publishing the number of books and stories in my lifetime that's expected of a part time writer like myself. As we get older, time seems to go by faster and so that makes me feel that I relatively don't have a lot of time to put out the books that are expected of a self-published author such as myself. My other fear as a writer is that, because I get so far behind on my writing projects like "Bad Apps" and my newsletter (which I haven't even had a chance  to publish the first issue of the year yet), I'll lose readers. 

I try to resolve the first problem by just continuing to write thinking that whatever happens is meant to be and that I was meant to write regardless of how successful or unsuccessful my work is. The second problem I try to resolve by keeping people informed here at A Far Out Fantastic Site on the latest progress of my projects, including the newsletter, which itself  I also use to keep people informed but in more detail. However, there’s also a way that I try to resolve both problems: I let those fears motivate me to write faster even if the speed increases only a little bit. 

Why Lengthy Endings in Science Fiction and Horror are a Problem

In my last post, I talked about how people in my critique group were apparently mistaking what genre my short story, "Virtual Voodoo", was supposed to be under. As I said, it’s a science fiction horror story.  Genre wasn’t the only thing that they got wrong in their critiques. There were other aspects of the story that they misunderstood, namely the characterisation. However, while I was working revisions into the story a couple of weeks ago, I realised that the people in the group were at least right about one thing. That one thing was that the protagonist’s self-proclamation of hero should be takin out from the ending. Yet I didn’t take it out because of a character problem even though when I did take it out it seemed to improve the character. The reason I took it out was because leaving it in would call for explanation and so too long of an ending, which is a problem with a lot of science fiction and horror today in both books and cinema. Lengthy endings in science fiction and horror can rob audiences of lasting impact. 

Specifically, I took out the protagonist's self-proclamation scene for two reasons. One is so the ending won't linger. When endings linger, they often stray too far from the plot. The other reason is because I want to leave readers with a meaningful impact. I want readers to think about the story for a long time and to see how it changes their perspectives on life, specifically in the area of ongoing advancement in computer technology. That's a lot harder to do when the ending to the story goes off on other topics that the story didn't cover, and in this one that would be heroism in a character who is not a hero but an anti-hero. It would almost be to the point where the story would be turning into another story or even an additional one. That's a big problem with a lot of today's science fiction and horror. 

I personally think, endings in science fiction and horror are lengthy today because these two genres are escapist. Of course, they’ve been escapist for a long time. However, since 30 years ago or so, film technology has advanced to where it’s relatively cheaper to make longer movies. This advancement has been exploited especially here in the US where consumer society always wants more. So, longer sci fi and horror movies have influenced their literary counterparts. 

The problem with elongated endings is that the audience or readers will likely leave the theatre or close the book thinking about the sensations the story gave rather than the meaning of the story itself. So, the problem is, too much momentary sensation and not enough lasting impact that helps make the audience look at life differently and in a more positive way regardless of how happy or dark the ending is. 

Some examples of science fiction and horror stories in our current century that have lingering endings are in both books and films. N.K. Jemison's Lovecraftian horror novel, "The City We Became", ends with the story lingering too much on the main characters enjoying a sunny day at the beach when it could have ended only a page or two after the resolution of the conflict. Doing so would have both aroused interest in the reader for the sequel (“The World We Make”) as well as leave them with a lasting impact about life and our vulnerability as a society. A more current example is this year's "Mickey 17" movie, In that one, the movie took too long to end because it basically had another story tacked on to it. As good as that subplot was, it could have been kept shorter or it would have made a really good sequel where even more could have been added to it to fit a two hour time frame. ("Mickey 17" went over too hours, just a little too long.) 

There's also examples of lingering endings in science fiction and horror from the past. Or at least horror. One is Stephen King's novel, "The Shining". As good as the novel was, In a similar way that the more current "The City We Became" did, the ending lingered with a happy swim scene which actually weakened the horror effect and so that sense of dread. It’s too much of a fairy tale ending like the one in "The City". 

So, even if I don't quite agree with my critique group on why I should take out the protagonist's self-proclamation scene from "Virtual Voodoo", I'm glad they suggested it. Not only will omitting it leave a lasting impact about life on the readers, but it might leave them with the sense of dread that good horror is supposed to do.  

To find out more about my latest fiction projects such as "Virtual Voodoo" and "Bad Apps", subscribe to my free author's newsletter. Do you think endings in today's movies and fiction (science fiction, horror or other genres) are too long? What about in television episodes? 

Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts: Feather Stone, Janet Alcorn, Rebecca Douglass, Jemima Pett, and Pat Garcia! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels! 

Until next time . . .

Credit: Pixabay.com