A good story with a bad ending

[Catherine]

I'm writing a story for my short story club that, personally, I really like the set-up for, but the ending I have in mind is somewhat cheesy and unsatisfactory. I was wondering if you guys might have some suggestions for improving on it or maybe even creating a whole new ending.
Unfortunately, I'm really bad at summarizing things, so my summary is a bit long and confusing. Thanks in advance to anyone who reads.

The main character is Geneviere, a girl living in a village that is too dull for her. She is totally different from the villagers, and not just in her dislike of her home. She has a pride and a sort of elegance that her neighbors lack. Her father is a bum and usually drunk, and her mother is dead. Her only great happiness comes from visiting the woods, which are feared by everyone else in her village because of the supposed spirits in them.
The other main character is William, who is a seemingly regular boy, with a regular family. However, Gen hates him for something that she thinks he did in the past (this is something I have to work on still). She has treated him coldly since then and he has responded in turn because he doesn't know why she does this, so they have a mutual enmity.
One night, they each have a dream (which I also have yet to make up), Will's suggesting his destiny, and Gen's pointing to her past. They both, seperately, leave the sleepy village that night, searching for something more, and for answers to the questions their dream raise.
Their journey brings them together in the woods, in fact, they meet at Gen's favorite place, a clearing with a fallen juniper tree that she finds perfect for sitting on. They stay there for a few days, neither of them knowing where else to go. During this time the talk with each other a lot, and they clear up the hate between them that has lasted so long when they realize that it is based on nothing. They also discover that there is life in the trees around them (this whole bit is another fuzzy part for me), most notably and old sweetgum tree named Tarasawi. Tarasawi explains to them that a tree's natural state is sleep, and while they sleep, they dream about things happening all over the world, so they are vastly knowledgible. She tells them a story of one juniper tree who was unsatisfiesd with this life, and so he turned himself into a man and entered the village. The villagers peacefully accepted this newcomer who seemed to relish everything around him. However, there were many things that he did not understand about human life. He thought that he could now do whatever he wanted.
After a few years, his carelessness and his distance from his forest home caused him to become unhappy, and so without a thought, he left behind his life at the village and returned to his clearing in the woods. However, his tree had been weakened just as much as he had by the long separation, and he soon sickened and died. This was the fallen juniper that Gen liked to sit on in the clearing.
There was something that he did not know when he left the village. Ellie, a simple girl whom the juniper had fallen in love with, was pregnant. Ellie died in childbirth, and another man(whose name I still need to make up) took the child as his own. However, perhaps partially because he had loved Ellie and he also now had the burden of raising a child, for which he was certainly not ready, he began to drink heavily. (This part made so much more sense in my head, and I think it will make sense when I actually write in more words in the story. Of course, it turns out that the child is Gen.)
If you've followed me this far, good job. Now here comes the part that I need help with, the shortened version of which is going to be extra screwy.
I wanted to somehow have Gen's past and Will's destiny be connected, since those were the things they set off on their seperate journeys to search for. The thing that immediately came to mind for me, then, was to include some sort of going back in time. This is what I came up with:
Tarasawi then goes on to tell them about a man, Lord Juth, who was powerful, self-centered, and thoughtless of anyone but himself. He had many men under his employment, and he forced some of his scientists to work day and night until they discovered a way to go back in time. Lord Juth desired to be the first man to do this simply becuase no one had ever done it before. Sometime in the recent past or near future to when my story takes place, he went back some years, leaving behind half of whatever he used to to time-travel so that his wife (or lover , or maybe son, I don't know) could follow him, but that person chose not to, being afraid.
Lord Juth was unaware that going back in time like this was against every law of nature, and that everything he did in the past would affect the future in some way. There were now two presents: his present and everyone else's. If his present ever caught up with the natural present, then the consequenses of his actions in the past would take effect in the future. This would include many differences to the world, and one absence of life. You see, Juth would quickly realize that living among people of the past, whose life was nothing like his, would be difficult for him, for he liked to flaunt his power and he had no power here. He retreated to the woods after having little effect on the few people he did meet. He told his story to the only tree who was awake, and that juniper, upon seeing how miserable this man was, rethought the he had vague idea to search for a different life.
So you see how, when Lord Juth's present catches up to the natural present and all the consequences of his actions take effect, Gen will utterly cease to exist. Therefore, someone has to find the remainder of whatever Lord Juth used to go back in time and follow him, then make sure that he has no effect at all on the world there, and the only way of doing so is probably to kill him. Tarasawi tells Will that it is his destiny to do this, and he argues that he doesn't beleve in destiny. She explains that it is not so because some god decided it, but rather that Will will choose to becuase it is in order save the girl he loves. Will immediately states that he is not in love with any girl, but Tarasawi urges him to discover that he has grown to like Gen on their journey together.

So now you can see why I don't like my ending at all. It's too cliched and predictable and confusing and VERY full of plot holes. And everything's too long. This was just my summary (but then again, as I said, I'm very bad at cutting things out and making things shorter and basically summarizing in general) So I would appreciate any help at all. Thanks so much ;D

[Brighitta]

Hmm... The way I understood it, it sounds good to me. The story is such that you were forced into the ending (which is not that bad at all), so I would suggest sticking to it. The storyline itself is pretty original and sounds very interesting, but you will have to take it slowly so it will not be confusing for the reader.

[Catherine]

Ok, thank you. You really think there's nothing I can do about the ending??

[Brighitta]

Nope. Seems cools the way it is.

[MaskedNicci]

The ending needs to be figured out fully, in my opinon. Do they bring Gen's father back to life? If so, does he remember it all? Is Gen better off with her father, or will he still wish to (pardon the expression) go back to his roots?

Gen can be displeased with life with her father, and THEN get together with Will, or vise versa. You could leave Will as a pitied character, who doesn't get the girl; or the hero, who has to work hard to get through to her to see her problem.

Just my thoughts. But then, I'm a hypocrite, and I may suck at plotlines as much as I think I do. But that's ok. I like it. Good luck on your story!

[kim]

it sounds interesting, but i think the end will be fine once you fill in the missing details, and dont worry about length while writing the actual story.
the longer the better, if its longer that just means theres more description in there, which isn't a bad thing at all; i hat summarising too, i tried to summarise the story im writing but i ended up writing alot, my story 'snippet' is huge, it might be about twice the length of my summary ;D

[Catherine]

Ok, thanks guys.
I still don't like the ending, but I guess if you guys think it's good enough and I can manage to write it really well then I can certainly live with it.

[Catherine]

Well, after our story club meeting yesterday, I'm going to post the first part, which, I'm afraid, is much too long. But I had fun writing it, so such is life.



The sun rose drearily on the village of Periferie Delegni, a small and self-sufficient place. It was occupied by very regular, hard-working people, all of whom either farmed or worked a trade. It was located exactly on the border between Cois and Maronia, and the villagers’ one and only pride was that they were neither Coisain nor Maronian, and therefore, so they thought, better than both. The name of the village was Coisain, although its people spoke Maronian, and it meant “Outskirts of the Woods.” The villagers only ever referred to it as Periferie. This was not only because the official name was too long for everyday use, but also because the Perrifarans avoided referring to the woods if at all possible. They never went into or near the forest for any reason, believing it to be haunted. The village’s only dealings with the outside world were for imported wood when they needed it, because they dared not get it for themselves.

But other than the fear of the woods and their pride in not belonging to any country, the Perrifarans were perfectly normal people living in a perfectly normal village. Things ran smoothly, and everyday life was routine and peaceful.

Geneviere hated it.

Gen, still asleep and looking graceful as the first true rays of light hit her window, was unlike the other Perrifarans in many ways. Gen was proud. She was proud of her long, silky, light brown hair, she was proud of her Coisain name, and she was proud that she was not like her neighbors.

And although her family was not much, she had a certain fierce, protective pride about that, too. Her father, called Bob, was generally regarded as the town bum. He, too, was still asleep, but he would not be waking up anytime soon, and when he did, it would be to a hangover. When he was not drunk, he worked as a farm hand or assistant to anyone who would have him. The people he worked for accepted him as an employee because he was such a hard worker. He was specifically devoted to his work because he loved his daughter, in his own way, and knew he needed to make a living to support them both. The people who employed him did not, however, accept him as a neighbor. When he was not working for them, they looked on him as a bum and a drunkard and nothing more. Still, no one ever said a bad word about him, because although Gen hated his drinking and berated him about it every chance she got, she loved her father and defended him aggressively to anyone who dared speak out against him.

Gen’s mother had died in childbirth, and Gen knew nothing about her, not even her name, because her father refused to speak of her, and that was that.

Gen roused herself from sleep and looked for a moment upon the dust floating through the rays of sunlight above her. Then, suddenly, she remembered that there was a delivery of wood coming this morning, and she got up and dressed quickly. Everyone in the village looked forward to wood deliveries because it was the only time that they had a chance to talk to someone who was not from Periferie. The wood-wagon driver, Daniel, was a friendly, easily smiling man who brought not only wood but news from out of town. Gen appreciated talking to Daniel as much as, if not more than, the others did, but she had another reason to be so eager. Daniel always brought Gen whatever books he could. Gen loved to read, something that was just not done in the little town. She also had a knack for languages, and she especially appreciated the elegance of Coisain. She was often found correcting the Perrifarans in their pronunciation, but they had an incurable thingyney sort of way of saying foreign words.

“Did you hear what the wood-wagon driver said about them Coyzies?” she heard one housewife say later that morning, after Daniel had come and gone. Gen had her nose in a book as she walked by, but she looked up sharply when she heard that.

“Coisains,” Gen corrected irritably. “Swah-yans.”

But they took no notice of her. When she had first started doing this, people would look at her as if she had just grown a third ear, but after they had gotten used to it they merely ignored her and went on talking. Gen, in turn, had gotten used to their ignoring her, and although she still muttered these corrections to herself, she had resigned herself to never hearing ‘Coisain’ pronounced correctly.

“Jen!” called Mrs. Meyler. Gen gritted her teeth. That was the one mispronunciation she truly couldn’t stand. People had taken to calling her ‘Jennifer’ because they couldn’t wrap their mouth around ‘Geneviere.’ They called her Jen for short, and she sometimes spent much more time than she ought to trying to teach them to pronounce the G the Coisain way, with a soft ‘sh’ sound. Even her father called her Jen. For some reason, Gen felt that this, more than anything else, was what separated her from her village. She felt that in her heart, she belonged to Cois, to the outside world, to something so much more than this village, but her speech was the only thing that manifested this.

“Jen! Or whatever you want to call yourself. Come over here a minute, will you?” Mrs. Meyler was used to Gen’s arguments about her name, and was wise enough to stop them before they started. She was a widow and a seamstress, and Gen often babysat her six young children. Gen didn’t mind doing work, despite her pride, but she wished she could have done less ‘girly’ work than babysitting. She would rather have joined the few teenage boys who lived in Periferie. They worked as apprentices for the various craftsmen, something that sounded much more respectable to Gen. Still, as the only young woman in the village, it was expected that Gen would help take care of the children.

“I won’t need you to babysit this afternoon,” said Mrs. Meyler when Gen got there. “Rachel isn’t available for fittings for her new work dress today, so since I won’t be doing that I’ll be home to take care of the kids myself. You can enjoy those new books of yours. In the town, I hope,” she added warningly and somewhat fearfully.

Gen knew what Mrs. Meyler was talking about. The woods. While Gen felt that the most important difference between herself and her neighbors was her love of all things Coisain, the Perrifarans thought that the most unnatural thing about Gen was her love of the woods. She went there whenever she could, to think and to get away from everything that made her unhappy. She loved trees, she loved the quiet noise of the forest, she loved the green light filtering through the leaves and the beautiful contrast they made against the bright blue sky. She soaked in the peacefulness, the richness, the life. From the moment it was uttered, Gen had no intention of heeding Mrs. Melyer’s warning. As she came to her clearing, all thought of that conversation, indeed of anything having to do with the village, dropped away. She loved this clearing. It was so very like a church, though Gen never thought of it this way because she didn’t know very well what a church was like. If she had ever seen the inside of one, however, I think she would have loved it very much because it would have reminded her of her clearing. The thick, strong pillars vaulted up to support the vividly painted ceiling. There was a single pew, a fallen juniper at one edge of the clearing that had probably once been taller than any other tree for miles, on which she now liked to sit when she came here. The altar was in the center of the clearing, a strong old sweetgum that sent out vibes of age and wisdom and holiness. Around this was what might be considered the ‘communion,’ great twisted roots that collected puddles of water after each rainfall from which the inhabitants of the wood drank and had their fill.

The place affected Gen as a church might have, too. All her pride fell away; indeed, she was humbled and awed by the sheer size of the trees every time. The purity and quiet of the wood wore away whatever bad thoughts of the outside world Gen had so that her inner peace and goodness could shine through, for this she did have, though it was not often evident.

As she made her way back home that evening, feeling refreshed and calm, thinking about the book she hade been reading, she saw William, the potter’s son, also walking home from somewhere, looking weary. He glanced up at her for a second to see who it was. She glowered at him, and he icily ignored her.

Here was the one boy in all of Periferie that Gen truly hated. She remembered vividly the evening that she had realized that he was not the quiet, thoughtful boy he had always seemed. She had already been feeling miserable then because she had had an explosive argument that day with Henry, a boy about her own age with whom she sometimes enjoyed arguing and sometimes did not. This had been one of the not-enjoyable arguments to begin with, and as it got louder people began to stop and watch, and then, to top it all off, she had soundly lost the argument. That night, as she lay in bed sulking, she saw William sneak up to their door and put a note under it. As soon as he was out of sight, she went to get the note and found that it read: “You know why you lost today? You’re the daughter of a bum and a simpleton, and you’re queer in the head to show for it.”

It was not a very well-written note, which is something Gen would normally have scorned greatly, especially coming from such a supposedly smart boy as William, but as it was, Gen took no notice of that. She had, of course, heard her father called a bum many times, so she was at least used to it, but calling her queer and her mother a simpleton were what really hit home.

From that day onwards she had hated William. She treated him harshly whenever she got the chance, and he soon learned to coolly ignore her. So on this evening their expressions of hatred were nothing new. What was new was what happened afterward.

Perhaps it was the peace of the forest the she still carried in her, or perhaps it was something even greater, but for whatever reason, Gen turned back to glance at William. What she saw surprised her. He was staring intently at her with an odd sort of expression on his face. He looked pained and dreamy and thoughtful and a little bit hopeful. But when she turned around, that expression vanished, and the two locked eyes steadily for a mere second before both going on their separate ways, wondering what had just happened.

But Gen didn’t dwell on it long, because as soon as she got home she found that her father had passed out on the floor. After she had taken care of him, which was rather routine for her, she went straight to bed because it was late. It was there that her adventure truly started.

For as long as she could remember, Gen had had vivid dreams every night. She never paid them much mind, because for one thing, she was not at all the sort of person to dwell on dreams, and for another, though they were clear and didn’t contain any funny symbolism, they were obviously not about her. And, too, she had so many dreams so often that they had become rather commonplace for her, and nothing worth wasting time thinking about.

But on this night, after a dull one about a king in Beaufort discussing matters of state with his advisors, she came to one unlike anything she had ever had before. She was used to simply watching things going on in her dreams; in this one, she was, so to speak, a character in the dream, able to actually do things. And as she found herself in her woods, the first thing she did was to walk to her clearing. But she found that it was not quite her clearing. The juniper on which she loved to sit was no longer fallen, but a standing, living tree.

As she looked up to see just how tall it was, she began to realize what was so special about this dream. For there, on the lowest branch, a girl was sitting. As Gen peered more closely at her (for even the lowest branch of the juniper was rather high), she realized with a start that this other girl was, in every way, herself, calmly staring back at her.

This, of course, gave her rather a shock, but she didn’t think about it for long, for there was more to look at. Above her self-replica were more people on higher branches of the juniper, and as she looked at the next-highest one, Gen found that this, too, was herself, though slightly younger. On the branch above this version was another, slightly younger still. It went on this way, up the branches of her favorite sitting-tree, until the very highest branch.

Gen had always known that her juniper was a giant of a tree, but she had never before now realized just how tall it really was. It soared up into the sky, seeming to touch the clouds, lofty and proud. Even so, her dream-vision allowed her to peer up to the tallest of branches until she could see it clearly. Here, as she had expected, was a tiny infant, in a cradle woven of branches. All the other versions of Gen, from the present one to the smallest of toddlers, had been sitting still on the tree branches, even though the littlest of them ought not to have been able to sit up and keep balance. This infant, however, was being cradled and rocked by the tree.

As Gen was wondering about this, she heard a cracking of twigs behind her and whipped around to see what was approaching. Instead of seeing the familiar woods, she woke sharply from her dream to find herself lying in her bed, panting a little, staring up at the darkness above her.

Gen stood up suddenly. She felt invigorated. She felt like this was even more important than just the first dream out of millions that was actually about herself. She felt like it was something hugely important, but she knew it was something she could never understand, not if she stayed here, not in this little village where nothing ever happened.

So she left. She brought only a book and a little food. At first, she planned to leave a note for her father, but she had no idea what she could write, and anyway, she doubted he would notice much. Gen wasn’t often in the house during the day anyway, and he was too drunk at night to pay any attention.

She didn’t think about where she would go. The question never crossed her mind, because there was only one choice. In the dark, the woods looked so different that she didn’t recognize anything, but she was still asleep enough that her feet could be trusted to find their own way.

She became suddenly fully awake when she finally realized that there was someone else picking their way through the woods in the same direction as she, about twenty feet to her right. She began to move more carefully and silently, veering off to her left, and soon heard nothing more of the person.

When she reached the clearing, she sat down wearily on the fallen juniper, but she leapt up again quickly upon hearing the someone behind her again. She stood still for a long moment, listening, thinking of all the possible things or people that could be following her, and growing increasingly frightened. She finally decided that, tonight, she did not want the familiarity of the juniper. Instead, she sat among the twisted roots of the sweetgum, with her back against the solid strength of the trunk. It was there, feeling perfectly safe, that she fell asleep.

[subtlecollision]

I didn't read the summary of the story so as not to ruin it for myself, but I read the snippet. I liked it very much; it was really entertaining. I am looking forward to reading more, Cat her in e. The writing style is very comforting and I loved this part:

She loved trees, she loved the quiet noise of the forest, she loved the green light filtering through the leaves and the beautiful contrast they made against the bright blue sky. She soaked in the peacefulness, the richness, the life.

And then I really liked the woods/church comparison.

Gen is really interesting; it's funny how you've written several times in the story something to the effect of "she didn't think about if for long." I am quite the opposite of that. I always end up dwelling on things and analzying them.

Overall, it was well-written. I think there were a few spots where you used 'which' in a way that made the sentence a bit awkward. I'd just consider that.

[Catherine]

Yes, my sentences do tend to be rather clunkly. I'll look into that.

Thank you very much, Nat a lie. It's encouraging. I think I'll write a lot over this weekend, as I have little else to do with the power out.

Yes, I think the description of the woods is my favorite part