A Finishing Touch And A Touching Finish

I don't like the way my blog posts end; they all tend to trail off from substantive discussion and end up in an overly moralising, didactic tone. And that really bugs me. Often by the time I get to the end of the post, I seem to have lost interest in it and I struggle to find a way to finish it off. I don't want just to stop abruptly. That is too forceful, unless there is a specific effect you are trying to

Anyway, recently I have been signing off my posts with Q.E.D. I think it's a nice touch, referencing the title but also giving it a sense of a signature. That still doesn't help with the content though. The thing I find particularly annoying is that I especially dislike a moralising tone in a piece of writing, yet I seem to slip into it far too easily. Personally, I enjoy things which end in an unexpected way; however if that happened too often it would become rather cliche. I do enjoy a good twist now and then, so watch out!

I've always wanted to write a story like that; for example, I envisage one where you would be drawn towards the main character and his success throughout the book, only to find out in the end he was a 'bad guy.' It would be similar to the way The Godfather develops; however it would be done in a much more subtle way and you wouldn't realise until the very end. I haven't yet though of a way to pull this off, but the idea still remains. Another involved writing a novel with parallel story-lines- you get alternating chapters- and it builds up so you think that they will meet at the heroic climax, but they walk down different streets or something similarly surprising and thought-provokingly unfulfilling.


I my final year of school, my English class read The Guide by R.K.Narayan. This book, set in India, takes you through the life of the bumbling yet lovable main character Raju. The story moves backwards and forwards in time, and eventually culminates in a thrilling climax. The reader is left desperate to know how the story will end. NOTE: if you want to read it, which I do recommend, skip this bit so you can read it yourself. Anyway, the story reaches its absolute climax on the very last page and finishes in one completely ambiguous sentence. You are left without any strong indication of what will happen; it's perfect for English teachers to set essays for but it also an amazingly striking effect. I still remember reading that last chapter, I was physically rushing through it to get to the end, such was the anticipation that had been built up. If I could emulate something like that I would be proud. 

My final idea for a story is not original; it comes from a Douglas Adams novel- so you know it will be rather outlandish. In the fifth Hitchhiker's Guide book, Mostly Harmless, there is a scene where Arthur goes to the planet Bartledan in an effort to find human-like people. The Bartledanians are a lot like humans, except they don't wish for anything. Or breathe for that matter. I find it quite funny, and it is this passage in particular that interests me:

 "He had just read an entire book in which the main character had, over the course of a week, done some work in his garden, played a great deal of netball, helped mend a road, fathered a child on his wife and then unexpectedly died of thirst just before the last chapter. In exasperation Arthur had combed his way back through the book and in the end had found a passing reference to some problem with the plumbing in Chapter 2. And that was it. So the guy dies. It just happens.

"It wasn't even the climax of the book, because there wasn't one. The character died about a third of the way through the penultimate chapter of the book, and the rest of it was just more stuff about road-mending. The book just finished dead at the one hundred thousandth word, because that was how long books were on Bartledan."

I love this passage; for some reason, it speaks to me, in so many ways. I would love to write a book like that. Obviously it wouldn't be fun to read, but the point is it doesn't follow typical dramatic formulae, nor does it try to rework them in a clever way; instead it is striking because it deliberately lacks conflict and climax and all those bits. It just talks about normal stuff; ordinary people with ordinary life problems, and so on. It wouldn't be a great read but it would be very interesting to write. And the literary critics might get off on it too...


That's about all I have to say now.


Goodbye!!





Seriously, I'm not saying anything more.




¡Adiós! 


Q.E.D.