As a writer, I've always had a hard time writing long works.
I love short works - poetry, short stories, essays, anecdotes - because they represent a slice of life. They're not meant to be the whole story, just a part of it.
I've never been able to tackle longer works - plays, screenplays, novels, or any kind of full-length book - because although I usually can identify where a story begins, I have no clue where it ends.
When is a story over?
Is it ever over?
Some plot points present a seemingly natural end to things - a departure, a breakup, a death - and I suppose they might work in a story, but most of my writing is more memoir-based, and in my own life, I refuse to let things go. Even when someone leaves, breaks up with me, or dies, I can't quite accept that that's the end. It may be the end to the situation, but it's not necessarily the end to the story.
Even in the story of my parents, with whom I have not spoken in over five years, I don't truly believe I have seen the end.
Even in the story of my first boyfriend, who I broke up with 17 years ago, I don't actually think it's over.
In the back of my mind, I always think that the person I'll ultimately end up with is someone from my past - a high school classmate, a nursery school crush, some former castmate - and not some person I have as of yet to meet.
After all, after every book read, every movie watched, isn't the first question that the audience asks is "What happens next?" Doesn't everyone want to know if Johnny and Baby stay together forever?
Perhaps I've missed my calling as a television writer, a medium wherein the story can go on forever, evolve, morph, and come to existence through the tellings of various snippets and vignettes, making the story merely an aggregate, a composite.
In television series, if the story ends, so does the series. Long-running television series (like the ever-shrinking category of daytime dramas, my favorite) have to find a way to keep the story going, ideally, infinitely. So we, the audience, get drawn into never-ending plot twists, reincarnated and resuscitated characters, marriages twice and thrice divorced and reunited, evil twins and other doppelgangers (wherein the character might be gone but the actor never leaves), and any number of other setups that hook the viewer and keep them hooked, wondering what will happen next.
Isn't the same more or less true in real life? Don't I keep dating the same people over and over again? They may have different faces, names, professions and hometowns, but aren't they essentially the same person?
Haven't I seen my parents manifest in the eyes of various bosses and friends?
Perhaps I don't know how to end a story because I can never accept any ending offered, be it happy or tragic. If he gets the girl, it feels too easy and convenient. If he doesn't get the girl, they were meant to be together and they'll find a way back to each other again.
So then, is the best ending one that is most decisively not final? A cliffhanger?
It is just as clever and compelling to end in the middle of the story as it is to start there?
