Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: thoughtful
  • Music: Ludo, "Too Tired to Wink."

On books without endings.

I received an email this morning that said, very politely, that while the writer loved my books and had enjoyed them greatly, they were no longer a fan and would not be buying any of my work in the future. Okay, fair enough. Why?

Because Deadline doesn't have a proper ending, and they don't want to encourage this behavior from publishers.

Okay. Look: if your definition of "proper ending" is "the story is over, and I can walk away satisfied and never need to read another volume," then no, Deadline doesn't have a proper ending. I have often said that the only time it's appropriate to end on a cliffhanger is in the second book of a trilogy, and Deadline ends on a pretty major cliffhanger. I can't apologize for that. It's the nature of the trilogy structure that part two will often end on a cliffhanger, and is allowed to do so. I don't end series books on cliffhangers; the Toby books, and the InCryptid books, all have solid, closed endings. I try to make sure there's always more story, but you can still walk away if you need to. This book is not those books.

Let me be clear: Deadline has an ending. There is a point where it ceases to be Deadline, and becomes Blackout, and that point is where the book ends. The Newsflesh trilogy is three books long, and those books are intrinsically linked, but each of them begins, and ends, at a certain place. The thrust and mood and structure of each volume is different, and when you pick up Blackout, you'll be reading a very different book, even if Deadline ended with some pretty major questions unanswered. I didn't pick that end point arbitrarily. I picked it because that was where the story of Deadline ended, and the story of Blackout began.

I completely understand and appreciate frustration over unanswered questions, unfinished measures, and endings that don't appear to end. And I also understand why some people have chosen to buy Deadline and put it on the shelf to wait for Blackout. I wrote back to the person who emailed me and said that I was sorry, I hadn't done it to increase sales or because my publisher made me; I ended the story where I did because that was where the story ended. And I stand by that.

Deadline may not have a "proper" ending.

But it has the right one.
Tags: contemplation, deadline, mira grant, writing
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muddlewait

June 13 2011, 21:56:12 UTC 6 years ago

This is one of the things critics/reviewers are for. I'll bet the idea "this book ends on a cliffhanger" was included in at least a dozen easily accessible spoiler-free reviews. Selective readers would be well-advised to make use of reviewers they trust; I know I do.

While it seems to me like you shouldn't have had to, it was nice of you to clarify that the cliffhanger nature of the ending had nothing to do with the publisher. It was also nice to see you once again express your commitment to tying up loose ends and having your storylines make sense.

Seemingly unrelated, but not: I hope that, someday, you write at least one episode of Doctor Who.

pbristow

June 13 2011, 22:15:57 UTC 6 years ago

"Seemingly unrelated, but not: I hope that, someday, you write at least one episode of Doctor Who."

OHMYGODYESYESYESYES!!!!!!! =:o> =:o> =:o>

Also: I approve of this suggestion. =:o}

laughingfalcon

6 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

6 years ago

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tallisdawn

June 13 2011, 21:56:12 UTC 6 years ago

Bwwwwww! This person gave me a good laugh. Series that go on are all going to have unanswered questions and often have cliffhangers. That's what keeps us reading it! Maybe they should stick with reading a cereal box or something. lol

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 02:11:25 UTC 6 years ago

Your breakfast is TO BE CONTINUED.

mel_redcap

June 13 2011, 22:21:11 UTC 6 years ago

...So, by this person's logic, they should probably have stopped reading after Feed. After all, there were big whacking plot elements left unresolved, hello compromised CDC. Pfft.

Also, I believe that people should not advise popular authors on how to write 'better' until they are themselves published, madly popular, offering seminars on "How To Write The Way I Do", and get asked!

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 02:11:38 UTC 6 years ago

Heh.

Word.

herewiss13

June 13 2011, 22:33:28 UTC 6 years ago

Even by their logic, they are not going by their logic. They've already rewarded you (and/or the publishing industry with its mighty narrative control) for not resolving everything in your ending. Instead, they're going to penalize you for every future resolved conclusion you generate.

...and while they've informed you of their intent, unless they plan to message the publishing industry at large, their boycott is still going to go unnoticed and unheeded (granted, if noticed, it'd still be unheeded, but still...)

Conclusion: Their logic does not resemble earth logic.

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 02:11:54 UTC 6 years ago

Sad but true.

kirk1701

June 13 2011, 22:48:42 UTC 6 years ago

Wow! That was a rather concieted self centered train of thought. The Deadline has been billed as the second book in a trilogy. Of course it leaves things hanging - have not read it btw, currently reading Feed and loving it. Like the middle movie in a triology, it is supposed to set up the finale.

Some people seen to think that every thing must follow their script and if it doesn't. Well it is bad, evil, poorly done etc. It is sad that they are that narrow minded.

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 02:12:31 UTC 6 years ago

There are books that have lost me by having tacked-on cliffhangers. There are other books that have blown me away by having NECESSARY cliffhangers.

admnaismith

6 years ago

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muddlewait

6 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

6 years ago

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yond_cassius

June 13 2011, 23:24:00 UTC 6 years ago

My first professionally produced is a one act play that ends on a semi resolution, but an incredibly awkward pause. (A one minute long pause in which the couple central to the play go about there separate business not speaking, following the arrest of the catalyst of the play, an eighteen year old girl who broke into their apartment). It is a one act play, it is supposed to be a glimpse into people's lives and revolve round two central conversations (the woman staying at her boyfriends who discovers she'd known this girl at school and been the cool intellectual queer girl that younger girl had idolised, and the boyfriend's conversation with the younger girl). The first time we did it it was at a festival which had a reviewer judging, and we got criticised for not dwelling enough on the effect on the heterosexual couple's relationship, and the effect after Hannah has left, and why wasn't there more about the boyfriend as a central character.

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 02:12:57 UTC 6 years ago

Ugh.

I am sorry.

phoenixrave

6 years ago

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ravenclawed

June 14 2011, 00:40:09 UTC 6 years ago

Maybe this person didn't know (or forgot) Deadline is the second book of a trilogy.

I hadn't read the LOTR books before I saw the first movie, and while I knew going into the theater that it was the first of a trilogy, I was still surprised that the movie ended before Frodo had finished his quest.

Even some one-off books leave the reader with more questions than answers. Yes, most endings tie up all the loose strings but not all.

Sometimes it's better that way.

Like the movie Lost in Translation. It wouldn't be the same movie if we knew what Bob whispered in Charlotte's ear at the end.

If Blackout doesn't have "proper ending," I'll be disappointed but I'll understand that that's what your muse (or the Masons) told you to do.

BTW, I may have gotten my youngest brother interested in Feed. I'll lend him my paper copy this weekend. It's certainly a big step up from the last book he read, Dan Brown's latest. :-)

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 02:13:25 UTC 6 years ago

It has an ending; it has the right ending. It's just not done-done at the end.

archangelbeth

6 years ago

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techdragon

June 14 2011, 00:50:54 UTC 6 years ago

I have to agree with you on the second book of the trilogy line of logic. I agree though I do not like it - I think it was Two Towers that really proved this style to me and I learned that I do not usual like it but it would not stop me from reading a series. Mainly, I have learned that I have to wait for the trilogy to be completed before I read it (or listen to it since I usually do audio book).

My point is that it becomes my problem to solve - not the authors.

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 02:13:53 UTC 6 years ago

I don't often like it, either. I sort of cringed when I realized I was about to do it. But...it was the only right thing to do.

muddlewait

6 years ago

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alicetheowl

June 14 2011, 02:00:26 UTC 6 years ago

Interesting. The second paragraph of my review reads: The book ends on something of a cliffhanger, which is to be expected in a second book in a trilogy. But that's where the comparison to other trilogies ends, because this is a middle book done right.

I got sick and tired of middle books of trilogies or series where nothing happens except that we're carried onto the next book. No character development, no new insight into the world, just, stuff happens that doesn't change anything in the long run, and, oh, look at the time, ending.

That is so not the case with Deadline. I can think of precisely two other trilogies that are exceptions to that observation.

I have no idea what was wrong with that email sender, but he or she clearly has a very different idea of what constitutes a good ending to a middle book in a trilogy. The ending blew my mind, in a really good way. Everyone else I know who's finished it has had to talk about it. I had to talk about it, on the spoiler thread.

So . . . I just don't know.

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 02:14:10 UTC 6 years ago

Nor do I.

elorie

June 14 2011, 02:09:59 UTC 6 years ago

I don't like it when people end a book sloppily, or it reads like 300 pages of setup/contractual obligation (I'm looking at you, Anne Rice). But resolving everything does not equal ending. Sometimes, things don't get resolved.

I'm sure some people are going to hate hate hate the way my (as yet unpublished) fantasy novel ends. But, there was a question posed at the beginning of the book, and about 90,000 words later it gets answered. It's just that there are other things happening by then :)

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 02:14:23 UTC 6 years ago

Word.

taylweaver

June 14 2011, 02:30:14 UTC 6 years ago

Since Feed didn't end on a cliffhanger, I forgot that Deadline might, and I do have to admit I made little strangling motions with my hands when I got to the end of the last page.

Of course, strangling the author kind of makes it hard to find out what happens next, which would make it rather counterproductive. (That, and you are far too sweet and wonderful and awesome to ever deserve such a fate.)

Ultimately, a reaction like that is actually a compliment, I think - which is to say, you did such a good job drawing me in, and getting me invested in the world and in the story that it was painful to think I'd have to wait so long to find out what happens next.

(Also, thanks for putting a little taste of Deadline at the end in the extras. Reading it took away a bit of the sting since it at least hinted at answers to some of the unresolved issues. In a way, that exerpt actually gave a bit more closure than the ending itself, and I appreciated that, even if it was only a bit. I feel like it gave me a chance to catch my breath.)

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 02:53:17 UTC 6 years ago

I can appreciate that. I made strangling motions, too, when I realized that was the end. I also giggled madly. I am not always nice.

bloolark

June 14 2011, 02:44:49 UTC 6 years ago

The thing I don't get about that mail is that it seems to imply that you should change what you do so that they're happy.

And the reader/author relationship just doesn't work that way. You should write the books that are the correct books for you to write, in the way that is best for you to write them, because you're you and they are YOUR books. Assuming that there's a publisher out there who wants to publish them, what actually ends up in them is up to you, with the assistance of editor(s) and publisher(s) and other book making folk.

My job, as a reader, is to pay you money for the books I like to reward that effort. If I don't like the books, I can happily not read them, not recommend them to friends, and/or not read any more.

However, telling the author that they're doing it wrong and that publishers are doing it wrong because they choose to tell a story their way is, to put it mildly, kind of obnoxious behavior.

If you don't like the books, don't read them. But the idea that someone else thinks they should get the right to tell an author what to do bugs me.

Sorry for the minor rant. :) I do happen to like your books (although I admit, I seriously considered dropping Newsflesh after Feed -- the Big Spoiler in that really got to me, and I wasn't sure about Shaun as a narrator, but I really, really, really liked Deadline, so I'm glad to stick with it). But even if I didn't, it's not my place to tell you how to write them.

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 02:53:42 UTC 6 years ago

I appreciate that you stuck with it. I really do.

I also appreciate your perspective.

kyrielle

6 years ago

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kyrielle

June 14 2011, 03:21:44 UTC 6 years ago Edited:  June 14 2011, 03:22:05 UTC

Icon in honor of the letter-writer, not you.

That was one HECK of a cliff-hanger, and I am antsy for Blackout. But it was ALSO a resolution. Indeed, in the process of hanging folks off of the cliff you actually resolved some remaining threads from earlier in Deadline, that I noticed (me noticing: not always a sure thing), and those were bits that were medical-drama and, if the change in tone happens again for Blackout, made more sense to answer here rather than there. Answers for Deadline, setup for Blackout.

Yes, some of it raised more questions than it answered, and many questions remain unanswered, but again...this is a trilogy. I knew that going in, and so should everyone else. It is not a terrible surprise when a middle book in a planned series with a set length ends on a cliff-hanger!

[edited to actually use the icon I tried to pick!]

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 03:24:05 UTC 6 years ago

Thank you.

glam_k

June 14 2011, 03:44:41 UTC 6 years ago

It DEFINITELY has the right ending! Chilling... and kind of "ooOOOOoooh!". :D

Also,
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It DEFINITELY has the right ending! Chilling... and kind of "ooOOOOoooh!". :D

Also, <hello!?!> to anyone who can't handle not having every single little eensy-teensy-weensy thing resolved by the last page in a book... because seriously, dude- how the bloody hell do you wake up in the morning, if you need that kind of resolution in life?? (teehee)

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 04:00:05 UTC 6 years ago

Very, very carefully.

ohari

June 14 2011, 03:49:24 UTC 6 years ago

So, basically, stupid people continue to be stupid on the internet?

I bought them both (plus all the Toby books) for my daughter before our week of traveling. She's hooked!

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 04:00:13 UTC 6 years ago

Yay!

kat_merle

June 14 2011, 06:37:12 UTC 6 years ago

Its quite possible that they had not ever read a trilogy before. I am an avid reader and my first experience reading a trilogy was much like this readers and I am sad to admit I had already graduated college by that time. In my case it was book 1 that ticked me off for not really answering any of my questions so I HAD to buy book 2. I still haven't read book 3 yet but after this lesson I think I will go back and give the whole trilogy another try with new expectations. Some of us actually can be taught and do learn from others' mistakes.

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 14:19:24 UTC 6 years ago

Trilogy structure is a very strange and specialized thing, and it's why I get annoyed when people call sets of three barely-connected things "trilogies." If each piece is complete by itself, it isn't a trilogy.

supersniffles

June 14 2011, 11:22:26 UTC 6 years ago

I'm 3/4 of the way through Deadline and I find myself saying, "Oh f**k!!! OMG, Oh F&%K!!!!!!" a lot. I expect this to continue to the end. And then I expect to be cranky until Blackout is released.
Because, WOW!!!!! These books are good!!!!!
(Hopefully this qualifies as 'spoiler free' and I don't get in trouble!)

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 14:19:33 UTC 6 years ago

It qualifies. :)

antinomic

June 14 2011, 12:23:11 UTC 6 years ago

Well, I liked the ending, knowing book 3 is coming. You made it to my personal SL in the final scene with Shaun, but then you were immediately redeemed when you really did not do it. And the final scene, with the extra, was wonderful. I'd say magnificent, but I don't know how to spell it. File this guy and the Westburo Baptist Church in the same folder.

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 14:20:11 UTC 6 years ago

I appreciate the perspective, really. I just wish it made more sense to me.

firynze

June 14 2011, 13:34:14 UTC 6 years ago

I get annoyed as hell when FIRST books don't have endings that I can potentially walk away from - a cliffhanger in a first book just pisses me off - but second books in a trilogy? That's the time it's okay. Grar. I prefer to have at least some threads neatly wrapped up by then, just so that I don't get all screamy-bashy waiting for the final book, but cliffhangers are fine in a second-in-a-trilogy context!

...of course, I'm one of the "wait until the trilogy is finished so I don't chew my fingers off waiting" people (did the same thing with Connie Willis's latest), but I certainly don't complain about a second book cliffhanger. Again, i say unto you, grar.

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 14:20:28 UTC 6 years ago

Waiting until the trilogy is finished is absolutely fair.

firynze

6 years ago

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madfilkentist

June 14 2011, 13:36:11 UTC 6 years ago

How do I put this? Especially without spoilers? Yes, a cliffhanger is expected. Han Solo is encased in carbonite. Frodo is alive but taken by the enemy. In the middle of a trilogy, I expect that some questions will be answered, and bigger ones will be opened, but for me Deadline answers too few questions and opens up too many new ones.

In my review I add some details to this line of thinking, and as I say there, I'll most likely buy the third book.

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 14:22:28 UTC 6 years ago

And that is entirely fair. It's a structural feature that's going to be good for some people, and bad for others. The lack of a proper ending is normal and expected on book two of a trilogy, and your other issues, while I may not agree with them, make sense.

The overarching conspiracy does have a point, I promise. And it actually doesn't hit Lensman territory. More "science fucks you" territory.

katiebabs

June 14 2011, 15:09:57 UTC 6 years ago

Love this- Deadline may not have a "proper" ending. But it has the right one.

What's a "proper" ending? The zombies suddenly all disappear and there's cake and ice cream for all?

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 15:24:25 UTC 6 years ago

...that would be the BEST ENDING EVER.

I need to go revise Blackout.

priscellie

6 years ago

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katiebabs

6 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

6 years ago

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katiebabs

6 years ago

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priscellie

6 years ago

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katiebabs

6 years ago

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Lost_Violet

June 14 2011, 15:13:23 UTC 6 years ago

I guess I don't know what a 'proper' ending is, because I thought Deadline had one. Sure, there's unresolved stuff, and some of it is huge, but really Feed also had fairly huge unresolved stuff. Lots of books do. It's actually one of the things I love about reading. While I wait for the next book, I can entertain all sorts of imaginary places it may go.

There are people I'll tell to wait until it's complete, because I love them and don't want to drive them crazy. Personally, Deadline is the first book I've read beginning to end, then turned around within two days and started over.

And it's the only one where the "The woman is evil and I adore her." conversation started at the beginning of chapter 6 and is ongoing. .

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 15:25:03 UTC 6 years ago

Aw, thank you. :)

priscellie

June 14 2011, 15:56:26 UTC 6 years ago

I'm struggling to think of a single middle book in a trilogy that has a "proper" ending. Deadline ended in the magnificently agonizing place middle books are supposed to end, in my mind. Middle books are supposed to leave you frothing at the mouth for the final volume.

I love your assertion that "There is a point where it ceases to be Deadline, and becomes Blackout, and that point is where the book ends." You're exactly right. Some of Jim Butcher's fans have been giving him grief about Changes' cliffhanger ending, and I'm sure they'll be just as bad about the ending of Ghost Story, but... those books had endings. They ended where those stories becomes the next. And if it's not "proper," it's most definitely "freaking awesome," and I'd take awesomeness over propriety any day. :D *cuddles Deadline*

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 19:14:34 UTC 6 years ago

Once the book becomes a different book, it needs to end. Even if the story will continue into the next volume.

lysystratae

June 14 2011, 16:48:42 UTC 6 years ago

Well that's just silly; it's a trilogy, of course it didn't wrap up the storyline in book 2. This just means I'll have to buy a copy to give my neighbor to make up for the missed sale ;)

seanan_mcguire

June 14 2011, 18:56:11 UTC 6 years ago

Yay!
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