Discussion
#WritersCoffeeClub 30Oct—Do you tend to include epilogues?
A piece of fiction needs to deliver *closure* at the end—to answer the questions it raises, emotional as well as plot-related ("did they live happily ever after" vs. "did the good guys win"). Needing an epilogue often implies poor planning by the author, because the natural end of the story failed to deliver this pay-off. (Rarely: the epilogue is there to settle a question that wasn't explicit in the story but implied, adding depth.)
@cstross I’ve looked on epilogues as a way of precluding, or setting up a sequel.
Sort of “This thing happened later…”
A - and now I don’t need to write that novel.
B - and sh*t (or yay!), now I have to write that novel.
@cstross I often found epilogues in books which told a story within a concise frame of time, say days or months, and the epilogue typically started with "1 year later" or so and described an outcome. This could've been simply the last chapter, but many choose to call that epilogue instead.
@cstross how do you feel about a denouement?
does/can the epilogue pull double-duty, or are they 2 entirely different things?
@cstross I agree that poor writing might force the need for an explaining epilogue, though I don't fully agree that all stories need closure
#WritersCoffeeClub Footnote: next year's "The Regicide Report", which ends the Laundry Files main series, *does* have an epilogue. But it's there as part of the frame around an 11-book series (and a hook in case I ever want to go back and write more in that setting).
@cstross … is a footnote to a post an epilogue of sorts? Asking for myself.
@cstross
I'm not sure I really want to read "The Regicide Report". We know from the New Management books that they failed and it is going to have to be one hell of a payoff to induce me to read through that final process of failure.
@Steveg58 Here's a spoiler: Bob and Mo survive (albeit not unscathed). Also? You probably ought to (re-)watch "The Abominable Doctor Phibes" and "Doctor Phibes Rises Again" first ...
@cstross @Steveg58
I'm re-reading the Laundry Files in preparation for The Regicide Report. Thus, these films will go on my list of things to watch, despite me not liking horror movies. (Reading about gibbering horrors is fine, I just don't need to see the number of tentacles the director had in mind.)
@cstross
I get what you mean, but sometimes I love epilogues because the main plot resolves yet the world keeps rippling forward. Take Neuromancer: so many threads — the ultimate fate of the merged Wintermute/Neuromancer AI, what becomes of the Tessier-Ashpool dynasty, and the long-term impact on the matrix — remain unresolved and aren’t really picked up in the rest of the Sprawl Trilogy. An extended epilogue showing “future consequences” would have been amazing.
@DanKen In SF/F, the constructed world is one of the protagonists; needing an epilogue for the purpose you describe suggests the author didn't provide character closure for their setting! (Which, to be clear, is not the same as an ending for their story.)
@cstross as a format I love an epilogue so much. It's done, time to go home, but just before you get up and leave, the waiter shows up with a last little treat.
@quinn That's what I was getting at with my last point! But all too often epilogues are a kluge, added to paper over the cracks in the story.
@cstross I'm easy though, not sure I've run into an epilogue I didn't like. 😂
(That said, I'm also a monster that just abandons books I'm not enjoying, without caring what comes next, like a monster)
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