The story that would not end . . .

And sadly, no, it’s not one of those sweeping epics that keeps on going because I love it so much and want the characters to experience more. It’s a short story. It has a beginning where the characters define themselves by their actions. It has a middle where the central issue/conflict/trouble is revealed and builds in intensity. It should have an end. It deserves to have an end; it’s a good story. It has the beginning of an end, and the middle of an end. It needs to have the end of an end.

It also has all the means to an end. All the characters are on the page and moving. One of the characters is a drunken madman. The other character is his wife. A third character is sleeping in another room. A potential murder weapon is sitting on the table. An open door leads away to safety. The reveal has, more or less, been revealed, but neither of the characters knows what to do about it. The wife has no reason to use the murder weapon. The drunken madman has a reason, but no sparking incident to make him want to use it. And the third, well, the third is a toddler and sleeping; she’s no help.

Is this failure a failure of the story, a failure of the author, or a failure of . . . well, I like things in threes but the inability to come up with a third is certainly the failure of the blogger.

Perhaps any failure of a story can be attributed to the author for getting himself and his characters into this mess in the first place. Did I plan a story that has no outcome? Is it a case where the reveal is what it is, and there’s really nothing that can be said about it after it happens? A failure in planning and plotting, that is. In such cases, the story is sometimes too linear: “Bob drives to the store. Bob arrives at the store. The end.” Or if not too linear, perhaps all the divergent threads have nothing to talk about once they get together at the end, like meeting a college friend after years apart, only to find our lives are either too different or too similar to have any basis for conversation. You sit for an hour over coffee exchanging three-word sentences only to end promising to do it again next time you’re both in town. But you know you won’t.

All of that is much easier and more diverting than addressing what is likely the real problem: my inability to visualize how real people would react in the situation I’ve put them in. What would I do if I were the drunken madman? Any memories of being a drunken madman are quite fuzzy; I can only go by what the police reports say (and the ex-girlfriends still won’t talk to me, so they’re no help). What would I do if I were the wife witnessing a reveal that would surely shock her? She’s in no immediate danger unless drunken madman decides using the murder weapon would be a good idea; she has no reason to leave. A spark that makes him use it would force her to react. Any path that diverges into this woods is equally unsatisfying, and taking the one less traveled will not make the difference. Robert Frost was obviously not a writer (kidding!).