howitends.

I heard a great quote about writing a long time ago - "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader" by Robert Frost. I think that this definitely applies to many great books that I have read and have found this the same in ones recommended by friends and family. However, is there a point of shock in this? Does the sensationalism of the story take over what really should have happened?

As a writer, I am guilty of rushing to the end of my story without building details up perfectly, mostly because I am so excited about how I am going to finish it. However, with journalism, especially online, we have the ability to go back and change things as information becomes more clear, or perhaps you read your piece again a day later and rearrange it.

I just finished My Sister's Keeperby Jodi Picoult, and I loved the story. I can see how it became such a phenomion and then transferred into a movie. However, I had a problem with the ending. I will not give it away as I'm sure there are many that have not read it yet, but I also noticed that Picoult rushed the ending in her book Nineteen Minutes as well.

Granted, there were definitely tears and surprise, but I could not help feeling after I closed the book for the final time that everything had been built up so beautifully only to crash down. I found that Dan Brown did this in his Da Vinci code series. Is this the new form of writing? Do we as writers have to shock the audience, or do they still crave to have a more rounded ending? Perhaps the well thought out and constructed ending takes too long and is old-fashioned, but when the world moves so fast in other mediums, wouldn't we just like to keep the structure of the classic novel, which has not comepletely died into the computer age?

Just a thought.