In a post on the Killzone blog, PJ Parrish asks writers to consider writing the occasional story with an open-ended conclusion. “I want to talk about fiction that leaves room for ambiguity and maybe even pain,” she writes.
Parrish cites the famous example of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, which has a definitive ending, but plenty of unanswered questions. The controversial story has been viewed as an allegory for the Holocaust, McCarthyism, and cancel culture, but the real power in the tale is its ambiguity. Jackson does not reveal the origin of the town’s lottery or what they hope to gain by it, leaving decades of readers unsettled.
“I believe all good fiction comes from disturbance — not just for the characters, but for the writer herself,” Parrish writes. She quotes Ruth Franklin as noting that the best literature disturbs us and that “the idea that a writer should not offend someone is a recipe for bad writing.”
“Great writing can entertain, enlighten, and even empower, but it’s greatest gift to us is its ability to unsettle, prodding us to search for our own moral in the story,” Parrish writes. Many readers feel that ambiguous endings negate the rest of the story. Some writers cling to genre convention to insist that they must show evil defeated and two lovers achieving their happily ever after. “How do we square the narrative circle that our readers crave?” Parrish asks. “How do we provide the satisfaction of a well-resolved plot and still find room for ambiguity?”
It’s not easy. Concluding a mystery novel with open questions, for example, requires a lot of skill and control over your narrative. “It might make a reader uncomfortable, but if it feels logical and well-earned, they will go with it,” Parrish writes. “To write well, you have to be willing to take chances and not be afraid of challenging your readers. But you also have to be willing to challenge yourself.”
