Literature's (Potentially) Second-Biggest Copout Ending

The night before last, I woke up in the dark in a stranger's house. Having run away from home alone with no possessions or money to speak of (not my wisest decision, I'll freely admit) I'd been very lucky to run into a random guy who was willing to let me stay at his house for a few days (reserve all judgments until I'm done telling this story, please).


Anyway, this person whose house I was staying in (I never did catch his name) had gone..... um..... somewhere (another detail I didn't catch), so when I woke up in the middle of the night on the pull-out sofa bed in his living room, I was in the unfamiliar house alone. I thought I smelled sulfur, so I got up and started wandering around.


Within a few seconds, the smell had faded, but the darkness and the strangeness of my surroundings was causing me to feel increasingly panicky and I started worrying I'd been awoken by some sound or other indication of sinister happenings, and sure enough, the next time I turned around the living room doorway was mostly blocked by an undefined, hulking figure.


I was naturally terrified, but by this time I'd figured out what was going on, and so without a second's thought I ran straight at the figure..... and straight through it into pitch blackness. For a few sickening moments, everything was dark and I couldn't move.


And then I woke up (for real this time) in my room.


When the paralyzing terror left over from the dream had faded and I glanced at my clock, I was quite surprised to discover that I'd only been asleep for about fifteen minutes.


(An interesting fact to note is that this, a dream in which I was staying at a strange person's house for no good reason and in which a mysterious, threatening form appeared out of nowhere, was one of the most comprehensible and plausible dreams I've ever had.)


It was this nightmare that finally succeeded in getting me to sit down and write this post that I've been half-heartedly foreshadowing for weeks.


See, back in January, I read a really weird book. It involved, among other strange occurrences, the main character (who lived in England in the 1930s) romping across the downs will a full Roman battalion, shrinking himself and his friends to explore a hollow tree with a friendly mouse, meeting a demented time traveler who had a serious crush on Alexander the Great on a tropical island (which he was able to leave by riding a magic dolphin), and later shrinking himself again and accidentally getting stuck in a case of stolen jewels. The book ended with a joyous chorus singing in a cathedral on Christmas Eve. Just as the chorus begins floating toward the ceiling of the suddenly-collapsing cathedral, the main character's guardian shakes him awake and asks him if he had a nice dream. He says yes.


(Now this is going to feel like a non sequitur, but I promise it isn't.) I first completed NaNoWriMo as an assignment for my high school Composition class. In the final weeks leading up to November, the class spent a lot of time preparing, mapping out our plots, asking the teacher questions, sketching our characters, etc. During this time, one girl asked our teacher her opinion of the "And then, she woke up", ending. The teacher answered that she doesn't like it because it feels too much like an easy way out, unless the twist is predictable.


For example, as I indicated I-don't-know-how-clearly above, the night before last I was able to determine I was dreaming before the mysterious figure ever showed up, hence my decision to run toward the figure rather than away from it. According to my high school Comp teacher, that could make a good story: someone having a crazy dream but gradually becoming aware of it. I rather agree.


But what about when the author just springs it on you? Is that really a copout ending?


In my opinion, the dream twist ending can also (sort of) work in fantastical stories, like the one I read back in January, or Alice in Wonderland, or The Wizard of Oz, none of which contain any indication throughout that the main character is dreaming. There are just two problems.



Problem One: Dreams aren't that realistic.


Allow me to remind you again that in my nightmare, I had for unknown reasons left my home empty-handed and moved in with the first friendly, hospitable fellow I happened to encounter. Allow me to also reiterate that this is one of the least bizarre dreams I've ever had. I had an uninterrupted dream once (I say uninterrupted to specify that this was a "coherent" narrative and everything that transpired in it was supposedly happening in the same day) that featured a lake so polluted that submergence in it invariably resulted in death, a blindingly white apartment complex several hundred stories tall, an evil flying toaster (I think there was also an evil flying microwave and possibly a blender), and a dark purple ice skating rink which unexpectedly transformed into a dark purple swimming pool.


My point is that no one and nothing behaves normally in dreams. Dreams are not coherent. They're full of unanswered questions, non-functional premises, and nonsensical transitions. While books like those I mentioned above have inexplicable events, they are also generally governed by some form of logic, however twisted it may be. The Wizard of Oz (I'm talking about the movie version; I don't think it's all a dream in the book) even has a plot. Actually, the book I read back in January had a plot too, but it was confusing enough to be almost excusable as a dream.


Problem Two: It's still lazy storytelling.


Why do people use this ending, anyway? Not being a particular fan of it, I've never even considered using it in one of my writings, but I would guess that the motivation comes from the desire to send the protagonist on ridiculously implausible adventures without having to manage the later effects of those adventures on their everyday lives. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not sure it matters if I am, since that's what it feels like. The choice feels lazy, which is why my teacher called it lazy.


My least favorite kind of ending ever seems to send the same message of "Hi, I'm the author, but I don't want to have to write in the character development and readjustments resultant from the awesome adventures I'm sending my main character on". The ending in question? The forgetfulness ending. (A prime and much-resented example of this ending can be seen in the "Doctor Who" episode Journey's End.) This is when primary characters have all their memories of all their great adventures and experiences wiped. And it's ANNOYING, because they aren't just lazy, unsatisfying conclusions, they can also be used as pathos-ridden, emotionally manipulative romps (scroll down for applicable rant).


But now I'm rambling. My final verdict(s)? I like Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. I like The Wizard of Oz. I didn't really like the book I read in January (which is, of course, why I've been wanting to post about it). I think that, like most storytelling techniques, the laziness or effectiveness of the "It was all a dream" twist is dependent on the context of the full story and on the author's writing style and abilities.


The fact is, what I like about the Alice books and The Wizard of Oz are the fantastical elements, and I think I would prefer those stories if those elements were real, like they are in, say, The Chronicles of Narnia. I find this ending and the forgetfulness ending disappointing, not just because they feel lazy, but also because I would hate to go on a life-changingly wonderful adventure that made me an explorer or a vanquishing hero only to forget it or discover it wasn't real. These endings aren't only unfair to the readers or the watchers; they're unfair to the characters, too.


Like I said: this ending can work okay if done by a good author. But I like it better when stories are true for the characters within them.


(Although I am quite content to have my freakishly weird dreams remain dreams. Just saying.)


~Pearl Clayton