by James R. Preston

When you’re in the hospital you have a lot of time to think.

In my case it was, in part, what do I want to say to the WITS audience if I get a chance to write to them again?

The answer was clear.

We’re going to touch a lot of bases. We’ll examine what makes a story different from real life; we’ll look at the end of one of Robert A. Heinlein’s novels and you’ll have a chance to rewrite it, and then a chance to see what the majority of readers think. I’ll critique a movie I just saw, and we’ll have a few words about a constellation, a little astronomy bonus at no extra charge. And I’ll share the answer I came up with to a question I wasn’t aware I was asking.

In “Peter Pan” Tinkerbelle dies. The audience is asked to clap to show that they believe in fairies and bring her back to life, changing the end.

Orion’s Belt

If you have a chance, go outside some fall evening and look for Orion. It’s one of the most easily-recognized constellations. To find it if you are in the northern hemisphere, look south on a fall night. Find three bright stars in a row. That’s his belt. Hold that thought.

Podkayne of Mars

Spoiler alert! I’m going to tell you the end, and then I’ll tell you the other end. (Huh? What? Yeah, there’re two ends, sort of like the Director’s Cut of a movie.) When Heinlein first published Podkayne of Mars, the publisher didn’t like the way it ended. Still with me? Ok, here’s the spoiler: in the first end, the way Heinlein wrote it, Podkayne dies. Yep. Heinlein kills the main character.

He kills the lead character in a story that is mostly first-person, which is a pretty neat trick. Yow! What gives? It was not what I would have expected, but that’s not what I read because he was made to change it. When first published, Podkayne is seriously injured but she lives and that’s what I first read when I was in Junior High. Years later, Baen Books came out with a paperback edition in which they added Heinlein’s original end. And they asked readers which one they liked best.

Ok, let’s talk about what makes a story satisfying. It doesn’t have to be a “Happy End,” it just has to be the right end. The characters in your stories are, by definition, going to have problems. The essence of a story is a character who wants something and another something is keeping them from getting it. The conflict in the story, whether external or internal, and its resolution are what make a satisfying end.

Story and Reality

Ok, “real life” doesn’t always have neat, happy endings. So what? If your novel was a mirror of real life you could just write down everything that happened to you for a day (see James Joyce’s Ulysses) and it would be a story. It worked for Joyce, but I can’t do it. If you can, more power to you. Meanwhile, you know and I know that it doesn’t work like that for us.

As a writer, you make a story, supplying structure to life’s randomness. Pattern recognition. Pattern making. It goes back at least to hunter-gatherers looking at the sky and seeing animals and people and even Orion and recording those stories in caves for us to find 50,000 years later.

Let Your characters Have Some Fun

Robert B. Parker’s Spenser finds joy in cooking and in his relationship with Susan Silverman. Matt Helm (from the books, not the silly Dean Martin movies) enjoys being outdoors fishing and camping. Stephanie Plum loves her family despite the fact that they make her want to scream. Let your characters experience some joy. In my case, my protagonist in the Surf City Mysteries revels in early morning at the Huntington Pier when the air is still and the waves are glassy.

Iron Lung

I recently saw a science fiction movie where a convict is welded into a submarine and sent off to find something. “Iron Lung” made me think about this essay in a new way. There is not a moment of relief in that whole two hours. And the end is “ripped from the headlines of realism”—the viewer is not sure whether the hero succeeded or not, or if it mattered. It just ends.

I found it unsatisfying, totally unsatisfying. There are many good things about the film, but it’s as if we looked at the sky, at Orion, and saw—nothing. Random spots of light. “But, life is like that.” “Right! Art is not life. Art is making sense of the world around us.” It’s our job as writers to look at the sky and say, “Hey that looks like Orion. See those three stars? That’s his belt.”

Which leads us back to Podkayne of Mars.

Podkayne Again

Like I said, I believe the author has the responsibility to pick an end. That’s their job. I don’t mean tying everything up with a big pink bow, but a conclusion of some sort. The ending RAH picked was, to say the least, a downer. Podkayne is killed in a bomb explosion. The publisher didn’t like it; one reason being that the book was aimed at a young market, readers who would not see the point of the death. Reluctantly, Heinlein wrote a new end in which she lives. And the end of the story? In the new edition, when Baen asked readers which they preferred, by a 2-to-1 margin they voted for—wait for it—Podkayne dying.

How do I feel about that?

I have to go with Podkayne living. I think the publisher was right and Heinlein was right to make the change. With Poddy dead, buried in radioactive mud, what’s the point? I think most modern interpretations are reading into the story things that are not there. However, it’s Heinlein’s story and he should get to pick the end. The fact that I think he is wrong is immaterial. The comments on the web indicate that I’ve got a lot of company.

I was privileged to study writing under the great Harlan Ellison. I will never forget how he drummed into us, “What’s the point?” What’s the story about? What’s the point of an ambiguous end? That life is ambiguous? Tell me something I don’t know.

Lest you think I am devoted to only “And they lived happily ever after” ends, stream The Outer Limits, “Demon with a Glass Hand” by Harlan Ellison, which I think is one of the best stories ever to appear on the small screen, and which does not have that kind of end. This time: no spoiler. If you haven’t seen it, you’re in for a treat.

I stand by the last line of James Clavell’s Noble House: It’s good to be alive.

One More Time

Orion doesn’t really have a belt. We give him one when we look at the sky and see the constellation. Pattern creation. That’s what we do.

Has there ever been a performance of Peter Pan where the audience doesn’t clap and the director says, “Well, that’s it, folks. Tinkerbelle bit the tuna. The end.” I don’t think so.

Let your work reflect a little joy and supply a bit of structure to a chaotic universe.

It’s good to be alive.

—James Clavell, Noble House and
William Faulkner, the Long Hot Summer

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About James

James R. Preston is the author of the award-winning Surf City Mysteries. He is currently at work on Roachclip, the third of his short novels set at Cal State Long Beach in 1969, Kirkus Reviews called the first of the series, Buzzkill, “A historical thriller enriched by characters who sparkle and refuse to be forgotten.” His work has been selected for inclusion in the University Of Berkeley collection California Detective Fiction.

Find out more about James at his website.

Top image from Pixabay.