Dark, alternative endings

[Bazzle]

Just finished a relatively lengthy piece (for me). It has a number of twists and turns. It’s already dark in places. While writing the last two chapters, I had this even darker idea, basically that two of the “good guys” are actually “bad guys” including the FMC.

I ultimately rejected it as a) I hadn’t really telegraphed it at all and I didn't want to rework the story, b) it seemed a bit deus ex machina, c) it felt like a twist too far, and d) I kinda liked the FMC and wanted a nicer ending.

But have you had similar thoughts, and even followed through on them?

Emily

Yes, I literally wrote and published two versions of the same story.
https://literotica.com/s/life-decisions-lauras-route-01
https://literotica.com/s/life-decisions-lauras-route-02

 

[StillStunned]

When I wrote The Countesses of Tannensdal, I had no idea how it would end. It's a vampire story, but drawing more on Sheridan LeFanu's Carmilla than anything else, and it's a Ruritanian romance, so it's also a love story.

In the end the story just naturally flowed in one direction, and it wasn't "happily ever after".

No-one has complained about the ending coming out of nowhere, but then again, not many people have commented on it at all - or read it even, to be honest.

Myself, I still think it's the most satisfying ending I've ever written, though.

 

[RetroFan]

Yeah, I don’t often think about the audience - it probably shows in my ratings.

Emily

The twist endings I tend to avoid are what I call 'whiplash endings'. I don't know the correct name for it, but they are endings which come totally out of the blue, that don't make sense considering the previous events in the story up until that point.

For example, the Nicholas Sparks novel 'Safe Haven' and movie adaptation is firmly set in the real world. Katie flees her abusive husband Kevin, moves to a new town to start over and meets a widowed father named Alex, and also a nice young woman named Jo who helps her settle in. Meanwhile a detective following up on Katie's disappearance just seems to be a cop doing his job, but as it turns out he is the abusive and dangerous husband Kevin. This twist works well, but throw in the second and final twist too far at the end - that Katie's new friend Jo is in fact the ghost of Alex's deceased wife - this puts the story previously grounded in reality into the supernatural and leaves the audience less than pleased. It could have worked if Alex had been the one seeing and speaking with Jo (like she is a customer, his kids' teacher or a co-worker), dealing with his grief sort of like the way a child might invent an imaginary friend and the readers/viewers are led to believe Katie sees her too but as it turns out she doesn't. Jo had been dead some time, and Katie had never met nor seen her, so she can only be a ghost.

Interestingly, in the movie adaptation Jo is played by Canadian actress Cobie Smulders, who was also in another work maligned even a decade later for its poor out of left field ending, the sitcom 'How I Met Your Mother'.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I'm not a real dark sorta fella. I have one story half done for this year's Halloween contest and it's as dark as I've ever gone. But it's just in the spirit of the holiday. Everything else is pretty sunny.

 

[Chazwill]

Yeah, my stories are typically about married women who are seduced or pressured into cheating, in one or two the seducer basically offs the hubby to keep the wife to themselves, it turned me on but felt a bit dark.

I didn’t know you published stories Savanna. I’ll check them out.

 

[Duleigh]

Just finished a relatively lengthy piece (for me). It has a number of twists and turns. It’s already dark in places. While writing the last two chapters, I had this even darker idea, basically that two of the “good guys” are actually “bad guys” including the FMC.

I ultimately rejected it as a) I hadn’t really telegraphed it at all and I didn't want to rework the story, b) it seemed a bit deus ex machina, c) it felt like a twist too far, and d) I kinda liked the FMC and wanted a nicer ending.

But have you had similar thoughts, and even followed through on them?

Emily

YES!
I was writing a sweet May/December love story about a crippled woman and her young, handsome (aren't we all?) Physical Therapist and another writer that I promised not to name, (right @MediocreAuthor?) challenged me to do something darker. In my mind the darkest thing was a hitman... what if one of this fairytale couple was a hitman? What if it was... HER! The story spiraled down into heart wrenching sorrow, anger, violence, and it's one of my most popular stories. And it was based on a 750 word story!

 

[MediocreAuthor]

YES!
I was writing a sweet May/December love story about a crippled woman and her young, handsome (aren't we all?) Physical Therapist and another writer that I promised not to name, (right @MediocreAuthor?) challenged me to do something darker. In my mind the darkest thing was a hitman... what if one of this fairytale couple was a hitman? What if it was... HER! The story spiraled down into heart wrenching sorrow, anger, violence, and it's one of my most popular stories. And it was based on a 750 word story!

In my already admittedly dark as FUCK story Rescuing the Fallen I have two endings planned, which I have tentatively nicknamed "The Bad Ending" and "The Worse Ending".

The story is a grim examination of the human condition through the lense of science fiction, and honestly it has a pretty pessimistic view of mankind in general. A happy ending isn't exactly in the cards for it... but I had to wrote a less depressing ending just to maintain my sanity.

The only question is, which ending will be the canonical "real" ending, and which will be the "alternate". I think I know, but I'm still deciding for sure.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Make it into a new story. Even if you start by just changing the ending, changing all the character names, then putting the foreshadowing in, then amending bits that don't work with the new story.

I don't mind darkness in novels or short stories, but there has to be a hint of at least unease, long before the heartstrings get wrenched. My pet hate is perfectly pleasant stories which trundle along nicely, then about 75% of the way through, kill off the secondary main character purely so the MC can emote about it. Particularly when done in childrens/teen/fantasy fiction or fanfic/erotica, so the author can go "Look, this is Serious Literature, honest!"

Some stories it works for - Anne of Green Gables, Goodnight Mr Tom - and the latter at least clues you in from the title, but so many others just leave you downcast for no real gain.

 

[Duleigh]

In my already admittedly dark as FUCK story Rescuing the Fallen I have two endings planned, which I have tentatively nicknamed "The Bad Ending" and "The Worse Ending".

The story is a grim examination of the human condition through the lense of science fiction, and honestly it has a pretty pessimistic view of mankind in general. A happy ending isn't exactly in the cards for it... but I had to wrote a less depressing ending just to maintain my sanity.

The only question is, which ending will be the canonical "real" ending, and which will be the "alternate". I think I know, but I'm still deciding for sure.

Sounds like time for a decision making process we call
Call
Of the
In-flight
Nickle

 

[orangecurious]

I almost did the opposite. One story was always going to end badly, but as it went along I had a change of heart, but then the entire thing would make no sense.

It ended badly.

 

[AchtungNight]

I should clarify- I have done a dark ending story, my Erotic Horror piece Courtney Crowe, but that story’s ending was always intended as dark and its only surprise is how selfish and depraved the FMC is. So it’s not quite what this thread is asking about. I’m generally not into dark events meant to just screw up my characters’ lives. Whenever a movie, TV show (often something done by Whedon or Kripke) or a comic book does that, I’m like “ugh, here we go again, what is these writers’ problem? If I had not been planning to get Courtney’s scheme thwarted and her appropriately punished along with her accomplice in another story (Fire Woman) I would never have been able to write the original dark ending. But a lot of popular writers generally don’t do that. They just leave their protagonists bouncing through various dark scenarios- dead friends and relatives, broken relationships, can’t hold down a steady job, living in a delusion, etc. I understand they feel they need to keep development and conflict moving, but still it really grinds my gears. Especially when it’s things that could have been prevented or come out of left field. Or if writers were just willing to let the characters indulge in romance and/or sexual encounters to settle their emotions, then achieve happy endings. Maybe the latter is only permissible in Erotic Works?

I have a few other dark endings too- my God of War and Star Wars stories come to mind, but those were preordained by the scripts and do not twist protagonists into bad guys or leave in conflict that will remain perpetually unresolved. They also fit the video game genres- of course Kratos must face endless battles and the Force must remain in balance. I’ve done divorce also and shown characters delivered from bad relationships by it back to a world of comfortable polyamory (the happiest state for me and them). Happiness, rather than continual conflict, is the goal. And yeah, both journey and destination are important. But at least a happy destination is generally reached.

 

[Duleigh]

I almost did the opposite. One story was always going to end badly, but as it went along I had a change of heart, but then the entire thing would make no sense.

It ended badly.

I've done that part too - I was going to kill off a character that I loved and the more I wrote the more I loved. She was supposed to die in Chapter 11, but when I got to Chapter 8 I was losing sleep and feeling nauseous, I was blaming myself for the death of someone that didn't exist (outside of my head) then a reader asked me what I had against this character because her life was tough and getting worse as the chapters went along so I immediately rewrote the outcome of the story, but I also had to re-write a related contest entry and make it come out sounding rational.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think the term some in this thread are looking for with 'twist' endings that come out of nowhere and are meant to be 'scary' is a swerve ending. These became all the rage in the slasher genre franchises like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street where the final girl or survivors seems to have won, then oh, no, here's Jason coming out of the water again! In addition to being cheap and stupid they're also the hook to say there will be another lame movie.

To the conversation in general, I admit to having this visual.

Some of the forum members. "I wrote a dark story! Its dark cause I say so myself!"

Me: "Aww, isn't that cute."

 

[Duleigh]

I think the term some in this thread are looking for with 'twist' endings that come out of nowhere and are meant to be 'scary' is a swerve ending. These became all the rage in the slasher genre franchises like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street where the final girl or survivors seems to have won, then oh, no, here's Jason coming out of the water again! In addition to being cheap and stupid they're also the hook to say there will be another lame movie.

To the conversation in general, I admit to having this visual.

Some of the forum members. "I wrote a dark story! Its dark cause I say so myself!"

Me: "Aww, isn't that cute."

It must be cool being so awesome.

 

[tenyari]

I do know I get upset with films that have twists at the end that leave me thinking the director is just taking the piss.

This is a very good point. It can happen a lot in fiction and in fact many of my readers 20 years back felt this way about my then story...

...and they really weren't wrong.

In the final chapter I had my main character get hit in a drive by shooting. The seemingly utterly random kind of violence I grew up with. For some chapters there had been a set of characters that I think my readers felt I was building up for a 'take down'. A pack of racist guys that seemed to fit the stereotype you'd use for the 'idiots your hero character takes down and shames'. Instead my racists gunned my character down - killing one of my main side cast, shooting out one of my character's eyes, and causing her group of friends to shatter when they all made deals to get out of responsibility. My character's father died while she was in lockup, and she lost her love interest due to her own homophobia.

So I ended it on a sour note. Mostly because I had grown to despise the group project I was on and the theme (it was high school based enforced nudity erotica). So I was literally writing an F-U to my audience.

Now... so that was my intent. BUT I also felt I had led up to it fairly well by noting the tension in the two groups. I think readers just didn't expect the "hero" to lose (the people in the other car did also die from crashing into a wall after my main character blindly shot back and got lucky, so it was a lose-lose).

Readers do not like this sort of thing. If you want to betray your audience, as I did - go for it. I knew what I was getting into. It works.

Readers want to see the ending coming in the build up and such. They want clues. If nothing else they want to be able to go back and look and then find the clues. In my case I thought I had those clues, but my readers felt otherwise because in that project no other author had ruined their character's lives. Even the ones who wrote the theme as a horrific tale wrote about their protagonist shutting the system down. I had my character end in random real world style violence. Which I was inspired to do after reading several other authors have their characters turn into action heros and take down 'random thugs' that tried to be bullies or crooks...


I am working on another story where the actual villain is the main character, and she doesn't know it. It's sort of a fantasy Jekyll and Hyde style tale. But that's going to be more built in and the readers will likely know what's going on or be couched for it properly.

Ending on a tragic note can work very well, or we wouldn't have Shakespeare. That was kind of his thing after all. But pulling the rug out from under your readers is just going to get them mad at you. Frankly that works the same way in reverse - if Caesar, Hamlet, or Romeo and Juliet had been given Disney endings in the final chapter, no one would read them.

 

[lovecraft68]

It must be cool being so awesome.

Not about cool, just no need to constantly blow my own horn.

Telling me how 'dark" or whatever your story is, is tacky. I prefer the readers to tell me what they think.

On that note, I speak on panels at horror conventions where I also sell my novels.

My experience and knowledge in the genre make me harder to impress. Sue me.

 

[Duleigh]

Thanks for helping new writers open up their craft. It is valuable to have someone to look down on

 

[Paul_Chance]

Just finished a relatively lengthy piece (for me). It has a number of twists and turns. It’s already dark in places. While writing the last two chapters, I had this even darker idea, basically that two of the “good guys” are actually “bad guys” including the FMC.

I ultimately rejected it as a) I hadn’t really telegraphed it at all and I didn't want to rework the story, b) it seemed a bit deus ex machina, c) it felt like a twist too far, and d) I kinda liked the FMC and wanted a nicer ending.

But have you had similar thoughts, and even followed through on them?

Emily

I think your instinct is correct. Taking a sudden twist with an ending without foreshadowing the twist is not satisfying as a reader. The best twist endings in fiction are where, once the twist has happened, the reader goes "Oh my god! I should have seen that...".

Those are pretty hard to pull off. Far more common, as a reader, is seeing the twist ending coming from miles away.

If it's a really good twist, just hold onto it for another story, so you can do it justice.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

The best twist endings in fiction are where, once the twist has happened, the reader goes "Oh my god! I should have seen that...".

Death And Other Details was a relatively meh show, but it did have one particular twist (the identity of Victor Sams) which: 1) was really good, 2) I never saw it coming, and 3) it was basically staring you in the face the entire time.

It very much elevated my enjoy of the program overall, retroactively. Still, the show was mid though overall.

 

[Jmanchu]

I have a lot of unfinished works that I don't finish just because of this. Planned dark endings or story threads that I consider changing because either I just don't have the stones to go as dark as I imagine it to go, or just dropping it altogether sitting on the backburner for various reasons to either rewrite when the muses hit me or something like that. Or until I just grit it and do it.

In my opinion, when it comes to twists, they work best when there's a hint throughout the story overlooked until further details leading up to the twist are revealed. And/or there are questions caused by certain lack of detail in the story that naturally come up and the revelation, full twist or not, is the answer to these questions, regardless of whether the twist is at least partly expected or a surprise due to a red herring or two. Twists without build and questions are like giving trick answers without being asked.

 

[shewantsmore]

Life is not always about happy endings,like stories that have twists,turns,things that you dont exspect, even if it means the bad person/persons win

 

[tenyari]

Much more important than 'who wins' and having or not having twists is making sure that the characters get sufficient story arcs.

If you spend a whole story dealing into the tale of a given character, and then in the last scene of the last chapter someone else who has not been a notable part of the story thus far steps in and resolves the plot; you made a bad plot twist.

Was reading a fantasy story not long ago where a heroine goes on a series of quests without us being told what or why even though she herself knew it all. In the last chapter she meets a great villain and we're told her quest was to go after this person who has had no detail provided thus far - not even described much from afar. And then something else resolves the plot and it just ends.

When I noted my own twist above with a driveby shooting - my readers felt, and were somewhat right, that it was like that. The plot was resolved by some minor side characters who had not been explored in depth. That may be true to life, but it's not a story.

I did it on purpose because I disliked my own fanbase back then. Don't do that on accident, and know that if you do do it on purpose - you're letting your story down.

A plot twist should have depth to it, and often wants a good foundation back in the story prior.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I did it on purpose because I disliked my own fanbase back then. Don't do that on accident, and know that if you do do it on purpose - you're letting your story down.

Now that's a fascinating author's motive for a plot line: "Fuck off, I no longer like you, sycophantic fan!"

 

[orangecurious]

Much more important than 'who wins' and having or not having twists is making sure that the characters get sufficient story arcs.

If you spend a whole story dealing into the tale of a given character, and then in the last scene of the last chapter someone else who has not been a notable part of the story thus far steps in and resolves the plot; you made a bad plot twist.

Was reading a fantasy story not long ago where a heroine goes on a series of quests without us being told what or why even though she herself knew it all. In the last chapter she meets a great villain and we're told her quest was to go after this person who has had no detail provided thus far - not even described much from afar. And then something else resolves the plot and it just ends.

When I noted my own twist above with a driveby shooting - my readers felt, and were somewhat right, that it was like that. The plot was resolved by some minor side characters who had not been explored in depth. That may be true to life, but it's not a story.

I did it on purpose because I disliked my own fanbase back then. Don't do that on accident, and know that if you do do it on purpose - you're letting your story down.

A plot twist should have depth to it, and often wants a good foundation back in the story prior.

Yes to this.

I was reading a detective novel (years ago, the writer was quite new) and there were several twists, wondering who the murderer was... in the big reveal it was a new character! Never read another of her books again,

One of mine has a twist at the end but I dropped hints, possibly only obvious once you have seen the end, but they are there.

The dark ending one, it becomes much clearer what is happening before the final act, as one comment says "What a beautiful and sad story. I cried a little when I figured out what would happen and didn't want to read the ending. Thank you very much"

I will also admit to twisting some stories to prod the bear of the audience, but have stopped short of going full on rogue.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Death And Other Details was a relatively meh show, but it did have one particular twist (the identity of Victor Sams) which: 1) was really good, 2) I never saw it coming, and 3) it was basically staring you in the face the entire time.

It very much elevated my enjoy of the program overall, retroactively. Still, the show was mid though overall.

I was intrigued by your post because I somehow missed that show so I decided to watch it. Boy, do I wish I didn't...
The show was interesting at the start but it soon devolved into a convoluted Woke mess, full of plot holes and pure nonsense, and with a ludicrous resolution on top of it. Hollywood is truly incapable of producing anything good and clever these days