What It's Really About

But following on from yesterday, one person's satisfying resolution is another person's confusion.  Take the ending of In Bruges.  Does he die, or not?  My boss at the American university where I teach asked me that, because he knew it was one of my favourite films.  I said it didn't matter, because that wasn't the right question.

Similarly, Jim mentioned the recent David Suchet adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express.  More of less everybody knows the plot and who dunnit, so the suspense is inevitably lacking.  However, when the murder has been revealed, the credits don't roll.  The film continues...because it's not about Who Dunnit, it's about Poirot - his religious belief, his need for justice, his innate obedience to the command: Thou shalt not kill.  Who Dunnit? becomes the wrong question.

I write novels that fall into the Romance category.  Yet, to me, the books are never about Will the main character find love?  That's not the right question - because the answer is inevitably Yes!  My questions are more: In A Single to Rome, will Natalie find her way back onto the path she left when she was in her teens?  In Adultery for Beginners, will Isabel learn to forge her own path rather than relying on others?  In Nice Girls Do, will Anna develop her emotional IQ to match her academic IQ?

With In Bruges, the question isn't about whether he lives or dies, but whether he wants to live - and that's the question that gets answered.  'You mean it's about redemption,' said my boss.  'Ah.  Now I understand.'  

Telling All, or Telling Nothing?

Comments on the post The Curse of Flashback suggest several books or films that give the ending away right at the very beginning, and how it affects our reading/viewing in a negative way.

Here's the opposite - the book or film where you're left going 'What happened?  Did they abc or xyz?'  You flick back through the pages to try to work it out, but it doesn't seem clear.  Two examples immediately came to my mind - Love Act by ME Austen, which ends just before the main character makes a crucial decision and The Great Indoors by Sabine Durrant, where I couldn't decide what had actually happened.  (They're both quite old, so if you can think of some more recent examples, please let me know.)

Now, I know some people like the unresolved ending but I'm not a fan.  That doesn't mean I want every single loose end tied up, but there needs to be a clear indication of where we're going.  After I'd sold my first novel, Adultery for Beginners, my editor asked for a few changes.  One of them was the ending.  She said that all we needed to know was that Isabel was going start dating again and generally be OK, we didn't have to know whether Adam was going to be her soul mate.  I changed the ending.  

It's like the ending of The Italian Job and Michael Caine saying 'I have an idea...' That works because we know that somehow he's going to find his way out of this impossible predicament.  Anthony Mingella changed the ending of the film version of The Talented Mr Ripley, but although different in feel, both the book and the film endings work because we know how Tom Ripley is going to carry on with his life - even though we don't know exactly what he's going to do. That's satisfying.  Confusion isn't.  

Anyone for New Year Resolutions?

Lose weight.  Get fit.  Write more.  

Those have  been my New Year Resolutions for, oooh, years.  Some years I achieve them, some I don't.  Frankly, in 2010 I more or less did the opposite, ending the year fatter and less fit than I've been for ages - and with fewer words written. Obviously what I should be doing is making my New Year Resolutions SMART. 

S - Specific

M - Measurable

A - Attainable

R - Realistic

T - Time framed

Lose weight isn't SMART because it's too vague - how much weight?  by when? 

Get fit isn't SMART  - how do I define being fit? 

Write more isn't SMART - more than what? 

And none of it addresses exactly HOW I'm going to get there: cut down on the alcohol and ice cream, start going to the gym again, do my creative writing first thing before I blog, email etc.  I spent a happy afternoon writing down some SMART objectives until it occurred to me that I could be spending the time writing or exercising - and I'd eaten half a box of Christmas Florentines while doing it.  

I think the answer is, if you're going to do it, you will, whether it's giving up cream cakes or writing 1000 words a day.  No special resolutions, just do it.  

Real Life Doesn't have Resolutions

Last week I attended the sad celebration for the life of a young woman, daughter of some friends of mine, who had taken her own life aged 24. She had kept her despair well hidden - I certainly only saw her as an intelligent, vivacious and beautiful young woman with everything to live for, rather than the troubled soul she showed to her parents and siblings. At the service I stood next to her cousin, a year older, who kept saying she couldn't understand why.

And there isn't any answer to why. We'll never know what was truly going on inside her head, poor thing. We can only guess at the anguish that led to her to think the world would be better without her in it. There are no answers.

I was thinking about that conversation afterwards. How comforting it is to read - and write - fiction. There are answers. We can know what is going on inside the characters heads. And there are resolutions. Most novels start with something or someone disrupting the status quo, then the bulk is trying to resolve the problems that has created, and the end is when a new stability has been established.

I think that's why we read. Fiction has answers. It sorts problems out. Real life is cruel and sad and sometimes has no meaning at all. It happens, and continues happening. Fiction is finite. In 100,000 words or thereabouts it takes problems and solves them (or clearly hints that they are on the way to being solved). Yes, sometimes the ending is left open, but essentially, the main issue is resolved. Fiction provides security and reassurance in a scarily random world, and that has to be a good thing.

RIP Hannah. My thoughts are very much with you and your family.