The Glorious Aftermath of a Period

by Mandira Pattnaik

Annie Spratt

is a question.

is a possibility.

is a notion.

is another period. Then another. But is never a full-stop.

How does it end? How dare we end where we do? Who are we to do that in a story? And, if that story is a billion years old?

Having brought complex characters to life, and setting the plot in motion, do we just snip it off? Do we say ‘Cut’ like a movie director, and say, okay, that’s that, readers! You’ll have that much and no more!

Well, I’m not sure, but the end of a story is as much, if not more, tough to execute skillfully as an opening. I’m not offering an argument, but with stories getting leaner and briefer, and more fractured than ever, the final paragraph is everything — it is sometimes a question, a notion, an exclamation, often an ellipsis and all the other variations you can think of. Writers are not looking to get to a conclusion, the decisiveness of an end, rather perhaps looking to offer a sense of fulfilment, not as the whole of the words on the page, but as the summation of what is proposed, what is thought and discussed, and what is edited out versus what is written.

In short-length versions of written work, for me, endings should feel both sumptuous and earned, but not necessarily inevitable. In life, nothing is, arguably, final. But in literature, the scope is, unfortunately, finite. One must squeeze in the denouement, stamp it with the distinguished word “end” and seal it with the back cover. So endings need to do more, really honoring what was promised through its pages, justifying the means to the end, and yet swelling with what might follow, what could happen, and what might be the aftermath, while, most certainly, hovering over the finality just with so many words as required, just right.

Sadly, so many stories don’t leave a mark that way. Many plots, ripe with possibilities, appear to fizzle out. I’d imagine a writer, having spent so much time and energy crafting the spectacle of the introductory paragraphs in order to make an impression on the reader, is dizzyingly frustrated, and wants to get to the ending and finish it off as soon as possible. And, to let you in on a truth, I’m speaking from my own writing experience!

I’ll let you in on some secret hacks that writers resort to when they perceive there might be such a chance with their draft. 1) They turn their drafts front to back, meaning they start with the ending, and take their patiently-done spectacular opening to masquerade as the final paragraph. That is, a story told in reverse chronology. Or, a story told in flashback. The end is known, there’s no chance the reader is going to be disappointed! 2) They start with a death. Now, death is a finality. No denying that. Bringing it upfront, and then moving backwards, means the reader is prepared to work their way through several twists and turns, and the actual ending is just a point in the circularity of the scheme. 3) Multiple endings. Cinemas have used it, so why not? Branching out at the middle, to offer two or three different versions. 4) Conjuring up the cracker of a last line (one single line/epiphany as different from a concluding paragraph) before charting out plot/title/character. Writing it out first, and building up the rest of the story from that reference point. 5) Not having any set structure at all, just going back and forth with the plot and charcters so that sometime into the storyline the reader has settled into a comfortable yo-yo rhythym and doesn’t necessarily mind an unstructured final paragraph.

Talking of finality, let’s talk of the story that’s a billion years old. We are the authors and deciding its course as we speak. Our position in the universe is hurtling to a point of no return. During the last month, several towns in the upper reaches of the fragile Himalayas experienced sinking or land subsidence so significant that Joshimath, a town of 25,000, had to be evacuated on an emergency basis. According to reports, the ground is sinking at the rate of 6.5 centimeters per year, resulting in cracks on roads and buildings, some about a meter wide and several meters deep.

Climate is an emergency and unplanned development is proving disasterous. In places where this urgency is more pronounced, we’re seeing more voices of resistance. Novelists are writing prominently about climate catastrophe, though I don’t see it much in short fiction and flash, unless literary magazines have an issue specifically focused on it. I’d hope there is more interest and awareness as we stay informed and share experiences as much as we can. It is indeed a scary visitation and very diffilcut to effectively write. However, reading and writing about climate, I believe, does set off a small chain reaction. Let’s trust the fragments to make up the whole. Let’s hope this ending is not the unavoidable finality we fear.