Struggling with Endings

Since I was a young student, I've always had the hardest time writing beginnings and endings. With my writing process, I usually save them for last, as the meat of the story will usually inspire the perfect way to shape both ends of the puzzle.

I struggle with how endings are formed in many movies, TV shows, and books. In multi-season TV shows, I often see that the ending is compromised so that the audience is appeased. Before polling and blogging enters the picture, there is already a plot conclusion taking shape. In movies, I feel disappointed with forced happy endings, like everything must end like a fairy tale, or idealistic world where right and wrong are obvious - like "Oliver Twist."

I shutter at the thought of taking art and disguising it, or hiding it behind a brick wall - especially such a crucial piece of the story, the ending. Probably 99% of the time, I don't like happy endings. I want the ending to my novel (as well as all the stories I write) to have truth and honesty, as naked as possible. Often, there is the audience who wants a happy ending leaving them warm and fuzzy by bedtime. Justice prevails over villains, distant lovers live happily ever after, and broken relationships healed and forgiven. I want the chaos of life unleashed, and an ending that will leave a stinging impression of the parts of the human condition we choose not to discuss or acknowledge.

But then, maybe the biggest puzzle piece gone is hope. I have never been good at giving my characters hope. In all the suffering that we endure, there must be hope somewhere to hold onto. Change is always inevitable at the end of any story, something that makes it impossible for the central character(s) to go back to life as it used to be. And then also, there are characters who will make mistakes again after all that's happened, and those who will be too afraid to move outside of old patterns or familiar situations.