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   Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 20:39:28 JST Charlie Stross

   in reply to

   • Keith Wansbrough

   @kw217 You haven't gotten to read the Laundry Files ending yet! (It'll be out next year.)

   Fiction is an art form, all art forms are governed by aesthetic conventions, delivering a "good" ending—but not necessarily a happy one—is part of the implied contract between author and reader.

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     Keith Wansbrough (kw217@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 20:39:30 JST Keith Wansbrough

     in reply to

     @cstross interesting thread - as an author how do you feel about the pressure to provide a good ending? The Merchant Princes ending was astonishing; with the Laundry Files you've kind of skipped the ending and moved on.

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     llewelly (llewelly@sauropods.win)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 20:39:31 JST llewelly

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • 3Jane Tessier Ashpool

     @futurebird @3janeTA
     I don't think there's many times when I've read nearly all of a book and stopped shortly before the ending.

     But it often seems the ending is the least fun part of a novel; there's cultural pressure on the author to bring all the threads together in a neat, cinematic closure, a complex and challenging task, which often ends up looking like either a mess, or an artificially slick and unnatural piece of plastic, since closure is irrelevant to the real world.

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     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 20:39:32 JST myrmepropagandist

     in reply to

     • 3Jane Tessier Ashpool

     @3janeTA

     I think I just really enjoy thinking about “what happens next” and reading the ending closes that door in some ways. And if I really love a book the way it ends could ruin it, it is unlikely that the ending will make me like it more.

     Also endings are stressful to read— authors make grand and sudden things happen that can shatter the realism of the world or make me shudder and cringe at how forced and contrived they feel. So, by not reading the end I can avoid it.

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     3Jane Tessier Ashpool (3janeta@beige.party)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 20:39:40 JST 3Jane Tessier Ashpool

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist

     @futurebird so why do you stop early? Do you know? I raras all but the last ten pages of moby dick but that’s because it was a high school reading assignment and I had take the test so 🤷

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     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 20:39:41 JST myrmepropagandist

     I often struggle to read the last chapter of good fiction books. I will read an 800 page book, stop before the last 20 pages. I was musing on this habit and did a search finding a similar person on Quora. Quora has implemented AI responses. The AI response treats my personality quirk like a problem to be corrected: “If you find this pattern troubling .. Sometimes, simply acknowledging these feelings can help you push through…”
     A younger version of myself would have taken this advice seriously.