Ordinarily one completes a story that one tells to other people, for the reason that stories, by their very nature, have beginnings and endings. Even if that ending looks wholly unlike what one typically thinks of as an ending, one ends the story. Perhaps it could be more profitably described as "being true to the story."
If you've never heard of it, John Gardner wrote an odd book of criticism called On Moral Fiction (http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Fiction-Harper-Torchbook-5069/dp/0465052266). It was all about his particular literary-critical battles, and what his vision of story was. I don't agree with all of it, and I recall not understanding all of it when I did read it, but it certainly was interesting. I am probably in some sense stretching his definition of "moral," but I thought it fit the point.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
To put it another way...
Date: 2008-08-04 07:42 pm (UTC)If you've never heard of it, John Gardner wrote an odd book of criticism called On Moral Fiction (http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Fiction-Harper-Torchbook-5069/dp/0465052266). It was all about his particular literary-critical battles, and what his vision of story was. I don't agree with all of it, and I recall not understanding all of it when I did read it, but it certainly was interesting. I am probably in some sense stretching his definition of "moral," but I thought it fit the point.