Experience vs. memory, colonoscopies and punchy copy
I’ve been reflecting on endings.
Two books I’ve recently read have had relatively disappointing ones. They were both whodunnits that were going great guns until the penultimate chapter. There were so many unanswered questions, and so much sleuthing left to do. How would the hero solve it all in time?
He didn’t.
In both cases, the villain wrote him a letter that explained everything, tied up all the loose ends and unwound the unbearable suspense. And yes, it all made perfect sense, but I felt nevertheless it was a bit of a cop-out. It was simply too easy, and those final chapters have coloured my perception of the novels.
In other respects, they were well written, well plotted and entertaining. But the endings are what I remember, simply because they’re what I read last.
I was also thinking about endings as I watched Daniel Kahneman’s TED talk a few weeks back.
Called The Riddle of Experience vs. Memory, it’s a thought-provoking examination of what we remember and how we remember it. In our own lives, it seems, we often play the part of unreliable narrators (much like some of the books we read).
He talks about cognitive traps, the little things that ruin the big experience, the storyteller that’s in all of us, the futility of taking a two-week holiday and why moving to the sunshine won’t necessarily make you happy.
His talk made me think about the overall impression that copy makes. And more importantly, the close. The call to action, that is. In the same way as salespeople say you’re only as good as your last sale, writers could say you’re only as good as your last line.
Opening lines are important – they set the scene and create the promise. They draw the reader in and make them want to keep reading. But it’s the last line they remember, because that’s the experience you left them with.
Which is where the colonoscopy comes in. But I don’t want to spoil the surprise, so you’ll have to watch the video to find out more.
Like I said, it’s all about endings. Which in turn affect your bottom line (sorry, couldn’t resist that one).
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Find out more:
- Food for thought: Kahneman explores our unknown unknowns (as Donald might say) in his best-selling Thinking, Fast and Slow.