The end.
That’s where all the fairy tales end.
But is there ever really an end?
Doesn’t the story continue?
Even if the main characters are gone, doesn’t the story continue for the people who are left, the people they touched, the lives they changed just by being in it, good or bad?
The people touched by someone’s kindness, by someone’s love and laughter and smile, they continue on.
The people haunted by nightmares from damage done, the people who bear the scars, they continue on, one way or another.
Even if one person’s story stops, it doesn’t really end. We are all like ripples in a pond. What we do causes other ripples, and they just keep rippling, changing, into something new and different.
For other thoughts on The End, go to Sunday Scribblings
I totally agree with you there. The lives of the characters we construe as writers go on. Their lives, just like ours, never really “end”.
But, the story has to end somewhere. Because a story is to narrate a particular incident(s), which convey a message/theme. Just like our lives involve various stories, so do our fictional characters have lives, out of which only some, or a lot of stories, are taken by us to say something.
Any writer writes because there is a message to be conveyed. Nobody writes (or at least i think so) just to create a certain story, not knowing what the fate of the characters is going to be.
We have something in our mind–something that can convey what we want to, in a manner that can appeal to the audience.
I love the image of us as ripples. Change is a good thing indeed.
i think its the largest difference between life and stories, stories by their nature need to be resolved in an acknowledged ending, whereas life just goes on
Yes, life goes on and on, for better or worse. Even death isn’t really the end but the opening to a new beginning. I loved the way you expressed these thoughts.