Finished!!!!
Just finished the rough draft of my novel. Woohoo! This is try 13 or 14 of a novel based on events in a roleplaying game first played in 1886-7. So, it has been a LONG time in the works.
Ran out of creative ideas right at the very end, so I asked my friend Mark to finish it for me. This is my version of his suggestion for how to end it:
The Arizona sun beat down upon them as they stood sweating in the desert. Victoria looked at Bernard. Bernard looked at Thomas. Thomas looked at Jared. Jared looked at Natasha. Natasha smiled at Romeo, who looked back at Victoria. An uncomfortable silence ensued.
You may be happy to know that this is not the ending I eventually went with. In fact, it actually ends with a cheery line of dialogue, which is about as far as you could be from this ending. But John liked the “An uncomfortable silence ensued” ending so much that he immediately applied it to Hamlet, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars. (Example: Sam came home from the Gray Havens. He pulled Rosey into his lap. She asked, “So, what happened to Frodo?” An uncomfortable silence ensued.)
