Endings

[Sablesword]

This is perhaps my biggest bugaboo: Coming up with good endings for my stories. Or perhaps it's a question of coming up with a satisfying ending for a fictional tickle-session (or series of sessions).

Some of the things I've tried are:

o Never-ending story - the tickling is going to go on, and on, and on, after the end of the story.

o Timing - the tickle-session is for a set period of time, and when it finally ends, so does the story.

o In the more sexually explicit stories, the story ends immediately after the final big orgasm, possibly with an epilogue tacked on. Here I'm following advice I've heard given for erotic stories in general ("end the story as quickly as possible after the climatic orgasm.")

o If the tickling is for some Purpose, then of course the session can end once the Purpose is fulfilled.

Any other ideas? Either for clever variations, or for completely new possibilities?

 

[ElFewja]

This is probably one of my bigger pet peeves, although I always ignore it.

The way one of my college professors defined a lot of the endings you've listed was cheating. You're not really ending the story so much as you are creating a scenario where it's more of an infinite loop, or possibly suggesting a sequel. I'm extremely tired right now so I can't fathom the proper name, but the short story that involves two doors, one has a lady behind it other has a lion best exemplifies this. You're not... actually putting a solid end to the story, or working towards a proper resolution. Just kind of ending on the tickling.

Well, when I say your, I'm not actually referring to anyone, and I know full well that I do it too, and I do not like it.

As far as relating tickling to the ending of a story, I don't think there are any other ways to define it. You either end with the tickling and imply that this scene continues, end the tickling a short or long while before the story ends, or otherwise end it in a way that implies that more tickling will come.

As that professor said though, giving a story a proper ending is difficult. At any rate, sometimes - a lot of times in the scenarios I set - not having a proper ending works out for the best. And I hate that.

Etc.

 

[Sablesword]

You're talking about "The Lady or the Tiger" by O Henry [correcton: Frank Stockton. Although O Henry wrote lots of tricksy stupid story endings too]. I don't know the official term either, but my personal name for that sort of thing is "O Henry was a jerk."

To take my examples to a more abstract level:

o There's the case where the tickle-session ends in a dramatically/poetically/emotionally satisfying way ("with closure") and the story ends afterwards (again in a satisfying way). Now there can be future tickle sessions to come after then ending, but there's an explicit or implicit "but that's another story" attached to them.

o There's the case where the tickle-session continues after the story's end. E.g. the end of the story isn't that the tickling ends, but the Horrible Realization by the 'lee that the tickling isn't going to end. OTOH this can be abused as a way for the writer to bail out if he can't think of a good satisfying way to actually end a tickle-session.

o There's the case where the tickle-session just stops, in what feels like the "middle" of the session. The story doesn't end, really, but instead gets broken off. The story doesn't complete, but just quits. "The Lady or the Tiger" is a non-tickling example of this where the writer tries to make a virtue of it: "I'm not telling you what happened when the man opened the door. Isn't that cool and edgy of me?"

What I was asking for in my earlier post were concrete & specific examples of how the first two cases above might be handled well. Especially the first case.

(Hmm. A story could be made out of the third case, in a way: The 'lees get subjected to arbitrary tickle-sessions that all come to a sudden, seemingly arbitrary end, and the story is about them figuring out the why of it.)

 

[ElFewja]

The third is really easy if they're in an institution where they receive tickling on a frequent basis and their senses have been removed (sight hearing etc). That way, they wouldn't be able to tell when or why it stopped. I toyed with something like that, or wanted to, but again... yeah. I gave my story more closure than that.

Examples. Hm. I don't find difficulty in doing it, so thinking of how it would be done poorly and then correcting it is sort of hard for me. I'd just want to list every various way I did it as a means of success, but that's cheating.

I'm just going to avoid examples and probably piss you off more then.

Ending the second way is pretty easy, and an example for it just came to mind. Suppose that, again going with a institution devoted to tickling women, that when the tickler became bored it was necessary for him to stop, that there was some device that could continue tickling the 'lee's feet while she was alone, by herself. Could easily just end that, if it was a first person point of view from the 'ler, with the ler leaving. Or you could have it continue on, where the rest of his day/ticklings of others continue. I think I did that once, actually.

The first, though... hm. I think the easiest way is an interruption by an outside force. You're just some kid in your parents house, and youre tickling the living shit out of this girl, but your parents come home so you need to stop asap. Any sort of plot device that would interrupt, like police showing up to investigate the noise or something, which puts a damper on the mood irl and could potentially end a situation. A not so stupid way to phrase this is to say the plot deviates away from the tickling, as forced to by an outside force (because it would be incredibly silly for me to continue tickling this bound girl as the police are barging into my hotel room. Or, well, they could just physically stop me, or hell join in if you're an absolutely sadistic writer, but let's stay away from those points for now).

As for O'Henry. Yeah thanks for clearing that up. Was so out of it when I posted, heh. I'm sure that there is a proper plot device name for it, but I can't come up with it at the moment, and don't feel the need to go look it up. In his defense, cheating or not, it's a decent story and serves as an excellent tool to teach some aspects of writing. Great for exercises anyway.

Etc

 

[Sablesword]

"Easy reading is cursed hard writing."

Sure, the third case is really easy to write, but it lacks for making a satisfying story to read. The second case can also be a easy out for the writer but again runs a high risk of leaving the reader unsatisfyed.

The first case is tough to write, but it also produces the most satisfying stories from the reader's point of view. Especially if there is an internal logic to the end of the tickle-session, rather than a deus ex machina that turns it into the first case disguised by handwaving.