Thursday, March 31, 2011

The End

I hate endings.

Really, I do. I'm weird that way. I don't like the end of the school year. At the same time, I don't like the end of summer. The end of my favorite sports' seasons hit me the same way.

I'm actually the same way with books I love. When I'm reading a book I love, I don't want to get to the end.

Want to find out what happens on each consecutive page? Sure.

But get to the ending?

It's a lot like the end of the school year. I want to get there. The goal is to get there and savor in the ending. But reality is this: The people I've gotten to know throughout the book will then be gone. The characters in the novel will cease to exist and only remain a scant memory.

I like the middle. I like getting over the hump of the beginning and settling into the momentum of the novel. Being twisted and turned and pulled and prodded by the plot is great.

A friend of mine, when she loves a novel... I mean really LOVES a novel (she always points out THE STAND), she slows down. The closer she gets to the ending, the longer she'll take to read. The book will sit for days.

I'm not the same way. The book won't sit. In fact, I'll probably read faster. I WANT to get to the end. I NEED to know what happens.

But once I put the book down, there's just that feeling of regret to go along with the satisfaction of finishing the book.

What about you?

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2 comments:

Joelle Charbonneau said...

Ha! This is the perfect post for me to read right now. I'm about 20 pages from THE END and I can't wait to get there because I love going back and editing the book. That's when the characters really come alive for me. I don't outline so maybe that is the difference for me. Getting to THE END means I finally know where I was going when I started the damn book. Now I can make sure that everythign in between the beginning and the end is actually doing what it is supposed to do. Okay - back to writing.

Sabrina E. Ogden said...

Coming to the end of a book has always been a stuggle for me. I have a tendency to panic and I become really nervous. Don't laugh, but when I read the Reacher series last year- after I finished the 7th book, I totally freaked. I wrote a blog post about it and then I started alternating a Reacher novel with another book so I could make the series last longer.

Sometimes letting go of the characters is the hardest part for me.(sometimes is an understatement) Especially when I love the characters so much.

Damn. I really miss Jack now.