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By offering multiple endings to your story, you are distancing the reader from the story, and breaking their immersion. In effect, you are saying, very loudly, as the narrator: "it could be that X ...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-12T21:57:34Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42325 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T10:55:19Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42325 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
By offering multiple endings to your story, you are distancing the reader from the story, and breaking their immersion. In effect, you are saying, very loudly, as the narrator: "it could be that X happened, or Y, or Z, but I won't tell you which." So, you're moving the focus from the story to the narrator. You're implying that "what actually happened" is of lesser importance than some other factor. _The Princess Bride_ does in fact suggest multiple endings to Buttercup's story: > _'And they lived happily ever after,' my father said. > 'Wow,' I said. > He looked at me. 'You're not pleased?' > 'No, no, it's just, it came so quick, the ending, it surprised me. I thought there's be a little more, is all. I mean, was the pirate ship waiting or was that just a rumor like it said?' > 'Complain to Mr. Morgenstern. "And they lived happily ever after" is how it ends.' > The truth was, my father was fibbing. I spent my whole life thinking it ended taht way, up until I did this abridgement. Then I glanced at the last page. This is how Morgenstern ends it._ > > Buttercup looked at him. "Oh my Westley, so do I." > From behind them suddenly, closer than they had imagined, they could hear the roar of Humperdinck: "Stop them! Cut them off!" They were, admittedly, startled, but there was no reason for worry: they were on the fastest horses in the kingdom, and the lead was already theirs. > However, this was before Inigo's wound reopened, and Westley relapsed again, and Fezzik took the wrong turn, and Buttercup's horse threw a show. And the hight behind them was filled with the crescendoing sound of pursuit... However, _The Princess Bride_ is notable for being very meta with its story, throughout. The narrator's voice is not only very present throughout the text, but he actively discusses the way the story could be told differently by different "narrators". The whole story is seen through a meta prism, as it where.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2019-02-18T23:58:36Z (almost 6 years ago)
Original score: 4