There are good bad endings and bad bad endings. Have you ever seen the movie Pay it FOrward? If you haven't, I'm about to spoil the ending fo ryou very badly so avert your eyes until the next paragraph....go on....turn them away...Ok. I even cried at the end of that movie, but thinking back about it later I realized that it was a cheat. I mean, the kid just died. It didn't have to happen, there was no plot-relevant reason for it to happen, nor did it seem like a natural consequence of anybody's action. It was just like, oh, how can we make this more dramatic? Oh yeah, the kid dies! What a cheat!

YOU CAN LOOK NOW.

Anyway, bad endings need to flow naturally from the context of the story just as much as good endings. They must seem right, real, and while not necessarily expected, not something I look back on later and think you were just trying to be depressing. If you can do that AND make me cry, you've got a winner. (I don't cry easily and often, but it can happen.)

Let's see...good bad endings..>Beaches with Bette Midler in it...way back in the 80's. That was the first movie that ever made me cry and I loved it. Deep Impact had an amazing combination of happy and sad ... or more like sad but hopeful.

As far as books, "Lost Boys." Probably one of the biggest tear-jerkers I've ever read.

And a couple of others, that I'd rather forget: Leaving Las Vegas, Seven, and 8MM. The "evil trio" of movies with bad endings.

How many tradgedies did William Shakespeare write, especially compared to his comedies?

One of my favourite sad ending books was The Prairie by James Fenimore Cooper.

Also, you don't want to have a sad ending for purely sentimental values. Trying to sqeeze a few tears out of your readers. That's just as bad as having a good ending because you want to send them away with happy thoughts.

Rather, the ending should logically fit the narrative you've told as well as the themes you've presented. The ending of the movie SEVEN--which has been mentioned--is the best ending for that movie, because the whole point of the movie is to show that anyone is capable of doing that which they despise, given the right circumstances.

Let's not forget that THE LORD OF THE RINGS also has a sad ending. Middle Earth is changing . . . for the worse. The elves are leaving, and Frodo must leave as well. It's not a bad or depressing ending, but it is poignant and somewhat haunting. I suppose that would be my aim if the story demanded a sad ending.

I wouldn't call the ending of SEVEN a despressing ending as much as it was highly distrubing. And distrubing endings certainly fall under the rubic of "bad endings."

For the life of me, I can't think of a story I've read or a movie I've seen that's left me "depressed." I agree with Mr. Willy that the ending of SEVEN is very distrubing, as is the ending of Graham Greene's novel, Brighton Rock.

But I think the most "depressing" ending I've experienced is Clive Barker's The Damnation Game. The climax is distrubing, but that's not what I'm talking about. It's the very ending of the novel--the denouement--in which Barker clarifies one the "theme" or meaning of the novel, and it's pretty damn depressing--because he's right.

Sometimes a sad ending does indeed work. But as has already been said, it has to fit logically and make sense.

And I love Mary Robinette's reference to theater. I would say that Les Miserables has a terribly sad ending, but I feel content each time I see it. And perhaps that IS because of the curtain calls.

(Funny side note: The last time I went it was to chaperone a high school group. One young man was sitting with his girlfriend throughout. At the ending of the play she was all tears, hunched over and desperate for comfort. He put his arm around her then looked at me and gave me the biggest smile I've ever seen. Sly kid).

I am hesitant to make this my first post! But I am an English teacher, so I had to clarify the semi-colon rule. A little dislaimer first, I wouldn't expect anyone (myself included) to worry much about grammar and punctuation in an informal posting. However, since the question was raised... here's the proper use of a semi-colon.

With one exception, a semi-colon must always have a complete sentence on both sides. You are connecting two related COMPLETE sentences when you use a semi-colon. If either side is a sentence fragment, then you have have used the semi-colon incorrectly. (Probably a comma would serve you better.)

I found this information in A Writer's Resource: A Handbook for Writing and Research, which is an invaluable tool when writing and correcting papers. I may be an English teacher, but I certainly haven't memorized all the rules. (Except the semi-colon one. )

Oh, the exception refers to using the semi-colon in series when commas would be confusing. Such as:

The committee included Dr. Curtis Youngblood, the county medical examiner; Robert Collingwood, the director of the bureau's criminal division; and Darcy Coolidge, the chief of police.

I hope nobody thinks I am being snotty, because that is definitely NOT my intention. I'm just crazy enough to think that the rule is important. I definitely mean NO disrespect.

In time, I hope to participate in the writing discussions and share some of my own work. I'll earn a place, I promise.

Thanks!

I've got an idea for a story... it's actually an old idea I've had that I reworked today. I think it'll be compelling... if I do it right.

Just thought I'd mention it. It's not depressing, though. Depressing stories are okay... some are even really good... consider Card's Lost Boys. That book was horribly depressing and SCARY... but I liked it nevertheless. Not sure I could ever read it again, though. I don't recommend it as much as some of Card's other books... although I will mention it to some.

quote:

---

You are connecting two related COMPLETE sentences when you use a semi-colon.

---

It doesn't need to be just two related sentences. It can be three, four, or more. It simply depends [though it's rarely done for more than two these days]. In these cases, it's always a stylistic choice to do so.

The way I see a semicolon is as follows: If I have a conjunctive phrase, I can lose the "and", "but", "yet", and use a semicolon instead.

For example: Jonathan loved video games; he hardly played them anymore.

Remember that punctuation and style are ever changing; we used to use our colons and semicolons like this : with a space between them. We also used to put two spaces after a colon or a period; most people don't bother doing that anymore. I still do some things the old-fashioned way because that's how I was taught.

People often think I'm strange; they make fun of me for worrying about comma splices and run-on sentences; because they could care less about punctuation, spelling, and grammar themselves. I do care very much about these things; I am a pedant after all; all pedants care about finer details of the written and spoken word. (Note: If I hadn't used semicolons like I did in the above, I would have been accused of writing run-on sentences with all the conjunctions. This way, it allows for just the right effect and a little pause for breath between each. Try it; you'll like it.)

My wife says that one of the reasons she married me was because I could use a semicolon in a sentence. Lucky me...

EDIT: I sure wish this forum had a built-in spell check. Bah.

[This message has been edited by HSO (edited August 06, 2004).]

quote:

---

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot; Nevil shot himself through the temple!!!

---

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, Nevil shot himself through the temple!

Janey had three sea shells; Fern, none.

In the above case, the comma is used to omit the word "had" and the semicolon is used to omit the word "and".

While on vacation in North Carolina, I did many things. I saw my family; I went to the Tryon Palace; I explored the UNC Greensboro campus.

quote:

---

5. Do not join independent clauses with a comma. If two or more clauses grammatically complete and not joined by a conjunction are to form a single compound sentenc, the proper mark of punctuation is a semicolon.

---

quote:

---

To give a trenchant sense of contrast, use a comma [...] to link very short main clauses:

He doesn't buy antiques, he inherits them.

---

It goes on to warn of the perils of run-on sentences -- specifically, avoid using this construction with an adverb after the comma (e.g. the sentence "he doesn't buy antiques, nevertheless he inherits them" is _wrong_).

I don't think I could be considered a pedant...especially considering I'll need to look that word up.

And I think grammar matters, too! I actually ENJOYED my advance grammar class in college. But it wasn't until about a year ago that someone told me the semi-colon rule in a way that finally clicked with me. And that's what I put above. See, you can always learn new things!

mikemunsil,
But both sides ARE complete sentences! You were correct with the semi-colon!

Isn't he???

Jules,
Isn't Oxford English? They have different rules than us. I'm talking American rules.

Any and Everybody,
Generally, I teach that there are 3 ways to fix a run-on.

1. Use a semi-colon instead of a comma.

So, the comma splice of "Joe got a dog, it is very fat." becomes: "Joe got a dog; it is very fat."

2. Use a conjunction and a comma.

"Joe got a dog, it is very fat." becomes "Joe got a dog, and it is very fat."

3. Make it into two sentences.

"Joe got a dog, it is very fat." becomes "Joe got a dog. It is very fat."

Oh, I also give them a 4th option that they can use anywhere there's a problem.

When in doubt, REPHRASE!

A good bad ending makes you think, "gee, THAT was a sad ending" or "hm, how depressing was that" or "wow, that stunk for that character - glad I'm not HER." But you understand how and why it happened that way.

A bad bad ending is unsatisfying. It leaves you ticked off, maybe even thinking that you wasted your investment in the rest of the story. Yeah, Pay It Forward, definitely. And Crichton tends to do that to me too. Great book, fast-moving and entertaining, then he blows the whole thing with the last sentence. Grrr. Totally bad ending.

And another one was Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. I liked the book, but it didn't end. It just ... stopped. Unsatisfying.

So yeah, Silver, go ahead and write your story that ends badly. Just don't give it a bad ending.