My thanks too. I saved it to my favorites.

And I noticed this fits in with a conversation or two we have had here. And it's a dilemma that I have wrestled with both as a reader and as a writer.
 

Most of the time, I let the story tell me how it wishes to end. It's usually quite satisfying and occasionaly bitter-sweet as the article suggests.
 

Yes, foreshadowing, tying the subplot to the main plot, these are important things. But a really satisfying book isn't just a matter of getting the formula right. It's having the reader come away feeling different for having read a story, like their horizons have been expanded a little bit. I think satisfying writing persuasively argues from some conviction, or poses a question then arrives at a credible conclusion.

Frodo failing isn't just a clever plot device. It's absolutely necessary. I'm one of those people who re-read LotR every couple of years, and the more I read it, the more I become convinced it is a book about the meaning of faith and how it operates in conjunction with grace. Tolkien as a Catholic didn't believe in the total depravity of man, but operating in a Protestant intellectual milieu he had to admit man's ultimate corruptibility. For Tolkien faith meant doing everything within your strength to do, then once having given that full measure of devotion the saving power of grace completes your story. Tolkien doesn't have to foreshadow Frodo's crucifixion because that conviction reproduces the pattern of failure and redemption over and over through the story. Frodo's story is possibly the least effective example. Boromir and Theoden's stories are far more powerful. If there's one scene that justifies rereading LotR over and over again it is Boromir's temptation. That scene is not only beautifully written, it's a masterpiece of psychological and philosophical insight.

Ender's Game (it's been some years since I've read it so forgive any inaccuracies on particulars) is an example of a question poser. It poses the question of whether intent is essential to moral culpability. There is undoubtedly an element of the fantasy of power without culpability, but the exercise of that blameless but destructive power is ultimately unsatisfying to Ender. Then of course Ender discovers that the Buggers have had the same experience of causing unintentional destruction. What makes the story satisfying is that it ends with a conviction which transcends the question posed, and which apparently escapes critics who see it as a crypto-fascist fantasy: whether or not you are culpable for the wrong you do, you can't escape the consequences. That's a credible conclusion and it makes the story satisfying.

I'm wrestling with the question of conviction with my Kate and Archie story. I conceived it as a formulaic story, a sci-fi satire on the old Hollywood "remarriage comedies" like _The Philadephia Story_. The formula is very simple and quite rigid. You start with a pair of eccentrics who obviously belong together but are divorced or divorcing because they just can't figure out how to make it work. Then you precipitate a crisis by having one of them engaged to a square: an uptight, frigid, obnoxiously conventional villain without the tiniest spark of spontaneity or joy in their soul. The two-dimensionally nasty fiancée represents the path of least resistance whereas the true love represents the effort needed to live an authentic and fulfilled life. So where is the room for conviction in this rigid framework? It's in the nature of the compromise the protagonist has to accept in order to make the relationship work. In _The Philadelphia Story_ Tracy has to accept that people are fallible. In _His_Girl_Friday_ Hildy has to accept that Walter is untrustworthy and unscrupulous when there's story to be scooped (it helps that she's really just as bad as he is). Sometimes, perhaps usually, the compromise the protagonist makes is objectively questionable. In _The Philadelphia Story_ Dexter's flaw is that he's a drunk; good luck with accepting that, Tracy. But it's the conviction that in order to love someone you must accept their faults that sells the happy ending.

So, I'd say sure, write with craft; but write with conviction as well.

[This message has been edited by MattLeo (edited August 27, 2011).]
 

No offence intended, just something that came to mind. Feeling a bit mischievous today.