This might not be the right section, move at will, Commander. When do you think a story should end? I was recently enjoying the light novels/anime/manga of The Berserk Gluttony and I realized the actual story should have ended in Book 3, but will continue until book 8. This isn't the only series that continues when the story should have ended age ago. Even classic books do it and so many others, This trend makes me wonder when should stories end and why does there tend to be a downward dip in quality following where the end should have been? Is it because authors are attached to characters? Readers and editors want more? Or a mix of the two?
Well, I guess we can refer to the basic story/plot structure here - inciting incident > rising action > conflict > climax > resolution. So once resolution of the main conflict is reached, the story ends. I think if a series continues beyond this basic structure it's because there is a market for it?
This can be a massive problem with any kind of series or sequels. You can see it quite clearly in sequels to highly successful movies. The way I've heard it put is that the character's arc is finished after the first movie, but then they make another one (usually just to cash in on the success of the first one) without effectively changing the arc or the goals of the character(s), and they just continue to give audiences basically more of the same story. I heard this in relation to the sequels made by James Cameron (Aliens and Terminator 2), which are some of the most effective sequels ever made to highly successful movies. The reason they work so well is because he changed the arc and the goals of the characters involved—something that isn't usually done—and was able to create powerful stakes and goals for the sequels. Sarah Connor's arc in The Terminator was that she needed to toughen up, in order to become "The Mother of the Future," so she would be capable of raising her son to be a hero who could save mankind from the terminators. By the end of the first movie she had accomplished at least the beginning of that goal—she had toughened up and lost a good deal of her naivety. Cameron could have merely shown the next part of that arc in the second movie. Instead he let years go by and had her start T2 already fully toughened-up, so much so that she seems like a crazy woman and an abusive mother. She's in a mental institution for violent offenders and separated from her son. It's as if her arc has gone wrong, like she went too far toward toughness and became a psychopath. Her young son now hates her and thinks she's crazy. Well, this is not at all the arc we were expecting!! She now needs to learn the opposite lesson from the first movie—that at times kindness and humanity are needed rather than sheer toughness and hardness. I just realized in writing this that both the terminator and John Connor had the same arc Sarah did in that movie—from hardness to humanity. Hey, so did Miles Dyson, the guy who inadvertently created the terminator technology. He was a scientist developing tech that would lead to the ultimate weapon, and he had to smash all his work in order to save humanity, and sacrifice himself into the bargain. The terminator also sacrificed himself at the end, after learning to become human. I guess self-sacrifice is a human thing, something badass soldiers and hard-driven scientists won't do. At least that's the idea in the movie, relating to all the character arcs. Sorry, I went a little off topic there, but the point is that once the main character's arc has been completed the story is over.
No worries! I think you nailed what I was trying to say. In the story I was reading that I mentioned in the opening post, the character's arc was over, but the author didn't go through with the ending that could have been really good. I think that's the issue with all these stories that go on too long. It's because the character's arc is over and people have a hard time accepting that. The funny thing too, a lot of stories that have sequels rehash the old character arc again, just because they can't think of another one. Think of all those Christmas movies that have sequels that are the exact same story as the original (Home Alone 2) with a slightly different setting and the same message. Somehow, that also annoys me.
This brings to mind Robert Jordan and tge Wheel of Time series. After about book 4 the books felt recylced changing locations but the plots were the same with very minor variations. I have to wonder if he was milking the series due to it popularity.
Series are quite different than stories. They can last pretty long as they're kinda like Archie or Sherlock Holmes - inflexible character on new adventures. Other times it's a character on a journey and once that's solved - ala, Lord of the Rings - the series should end. I think most writers either don't want to give up characters they've been working with for years or are frightened to start new thinking that maybe the new story won't be as successful. I don't write series fiction so my endings are usually when I feel it's most natural for me to stop. They are a bit tricky for me as the story I'm working on has four 'acts', as it were, instead of three and it's giving me issues.
I think this is actually a very complicated question. It's such a basic question, but in some ways that's what makes the answer so variable. It really depends on the story. My answer would be the story ends when the story achieves what it has set out to do. Defining it by main character story arc is not a bad way to do it, but stories aren't necessarily about a main character's arc. The main goal/s of a story may be more to do with themes and worldbuilding, although character arcs will inevitably still be part of that. Complexity is significant here for sequels and that idea of a story ending too late. I think if a story has more going on one thing can seem to finish while others things roll on, and that can make determining a fitting "ending" point more difficult. Whether a reader of a story feels it has gone on "past its ending" will depend on how they understand the point of it and the value of whats left. There isn't really an objective point a story should end, it just depends on whether you like what is has to add still or not. Which is where I would connect to what @Xoic said about giving the characters new arc or stages of them. Sometimes the story has reasons already to keep going, but in a different way, sometimes you provide new reasons. A lot of pointless sequels you get in franchise Hollywood movies and bad books aren't bad because there's no possible reason to provide for a sequel, they just didn't provide a good enough one. An ending, even when it feels natural and satisfying and complete, can be a new beginning if you have a purpose for the new story. It just needs to understanding itself as providing something different or altered in some way. I think determining an ending point also its very much to do with tone and how you leave people. It isn't just the important points of what happened or whether it feels like a neat end to a sentence in a summary. It's also how fast the ending happens, in what tone and the final moments it leaves you with. An ending that makes a lot of sense from a distance, from a plot summary, can feel sudden, rushed, uncomfortable or even cruel and unfair if executed in a way that doesn't feel good to the audience. Sometimes endings will linger significantly past the major plot threats to tie up loose ends and leave the characters on a note that feels more appropriate, and in some cases that could mean continuing a series until the characters feel done on a more emotional level.
