One story where you stuck the landing

[StillStunned]

Nominate one story (yes folks, just the one, can you manage that?) where you're particularly proud of how it ended. And why.

One that I'm particularly pleased with, much more than the story overall, is Pas de Trois. After the big sex scene it would have been easy to send the nameless ballet dancer off with the brothers, and that was originally the plan. But during the sex scene I'd emphasised how much she was in control, how everything was happening on her terms.

So it made sense to send the brothers off after they were done, and it came to me that she might be feeling particularly pleased with herself.

She took up her phone and changed the music. Something quiet, classical. Still naked, her hair hanging loose around her shoulders, she began to twirl around the room. Her face was a mask of joy. Stretching, bending, reaching, she spun gracefully from one position into another. Her breasts jiggled with her motion. The muscles stood out in her legs, on her arms. It was a display of pure happiness, of love for life.

This scene also reestablishes the narrator's connection with her, after the initial jealousy at watching her with the brothers.

I watched. She was all mine now. A moment just for the two of us.

Ultimately I think this made the story much more satisfying. It shows the dancer in a private moment, and it gives the narrator closure. If the story had ended right after the sex scene readers would perhaps been left vicariously resenting the dancer on the reader's behalf. This way, everyone had a happy ending.

So how about you? Have you ever written a story where changing the ending made all the difference? Remember: one story only!

 

[lovecraft68]

That Damn Red Dress.

As you can guess by the title, its not a fun cheery story. What it is, is a slap in the face to most of the I/T genre because its a story of loss, grief, guilt, and addiction. The daughter having sex with her father was not an act of lust, but desperation and sacrifice.

Where I feel I stuck the landing was holding to my vision, and rather than the done to death trope of now that she did it, she's going to be daddy's good girl or little cockwhore, or even his new love, taking her mother's place, but it was only the one time, and the epilogue shows her back together with her fiancé' and her father has moved on from the loss of his wife to meet someone and is also happy.

A taboo story where its not a fun fluffy fantasy being fulfilled and doesn't end with family members being a couple.

Entire story is a middle finger to my own how to on incest, and the category itself in many ways.

Surprisingly it's over 4.7 and most of the comments understood the story, even got a few "Can't say I liked it, but wow..."

Worth noting the story did get some comments from the LW cheat squad saying the daughter is a whore and cheated on the fiancé' etc...

Even better.

 

[orangecurious]

for me, why'd you ever have to say goodbye

I knew the ending, but it was still hard to get there as the characters grew... I almost wanted to change the end. I knew it would be a long journey, ended up 23 pages of it, but, when I got there I was ready and knew what Lisa would say, knew what he would do (he was quite limited really) and saw the final scene, much like the end of The Third Man for me.

I'd tried to hide the end early in the story, but didn't want it a surprise, so hinted heavily as the story went on.

One comment was asking if I could do it from Lisa's point of view, but her emotions and feelings were always clear, even at the end.

I have another where I was happy with the end, even if one reader wasn't (from the comments). but that was less satisfying as this one was hard to write the final part, the long goodbye.

 

[AchtungNight]

Beijing Streakers. The female lead standing naked on the prow of the ship flushed with pride from her streaking and orgy, then she goes back below decks eager for more.

I can’t remember any time I’ve changed an ending and improved a story. But I have done some memorable ones.

 

[THBGato]

Eve & Lucy Chapter 5 of 5: Show Time

Not only did the relationship everyone wanted finally come to fruition, but by tweaking the ending, I also managed to provide an ending for my first story, The Hardest Step, here too. In addition, the characters performed the play-within-the-story, which had provided the major plot device for the whole story, a GM side plot was resolved, a mother found redemption, and the main characters' happy future got some serious foreshadowing. *dusts off hands*

Plus, my fans (all 8 of them) seemed to love it:

 

[Omenainen]

Class Reunion. Not that I changed the ending because I didn’t know how it ended before it ended. I personally liked the ending and so did this person:

Anonymousover 3 years ago
One of the better character developments
And you got 5 for the last sentence.

 

[VallesMarineris]

Ah, @StillStunned, if only you’d waited a bit to start this thread. I have a series I’m publishing, https://www.literotica.com/series/se/493866132, with a surprise ending that I’ll release in a week or two. The ending surprised me too as I wrote it. Made me rewrite the first chapter.

And my entry for Geek Pride (watch for it) has a really nice ending that wraps up the mystery and resolves all the tension, while leaving open ripe opportunities for the reader to imagine what might happen next.

So let met tout one of my earliest stories, short at 3.3K words, https://literotica.com/s/secret-superpower-03-oral-contract

In it my protagonist (I can’t call him a hero), a successful businessman, persuades a beautiful B-school coed to provide certain sexual services (the title gives that away) in return for letting her out of a financial jam she’s gotten herself into. The negotiations progress along with the sex acts, the agreement expands to other act, she’s up to the challenges both sexual and economic, and they reach a win-win resolution that’s emotionally, sexually, and financially satisfying.

Thanks for asking.

 

[intim8]

Pictures of Her hands down is my best ending. It's in Romance, and the ending is romantic.

Girl hires a guy to take pictures of her every year, to document her past year, activities. milestones, etc. By the second year, he's fallen in love with her - and there's one specific picture he took that, to him, marks that moment it happened - but she is still keeping it professional. By the third year, he's decided he can't handle doing this any more and has decided to tell her after this last shoot that he's done with it.

But now she comes around, she loves him too. They get married and live happily ever after, have kids, grandkids, etc., and grow old together. She dies after being married more than 60 years, and he still cherishes that one picture where he fell in love with her.

Kind of sappy, even trite, but it fits the category perfectly, and it's a real tear-jerker. And as several commenters said, the category meant that the happy ending was a given, it was no surprise at all, but how they got there was worth the read.

I had put the story aside for over a year, because I initially imagined it as an E&V or and EC story, and decided it wasn't going anywhere useful. When I hit on the idea of making it a Romance, the rest just flew off the keyboard.

-----------
I know you said only one story, but how about the opposite, the time I fumbled at the goal line?

Nudio's Pizza - On The Job Challenge is a fun, goofy story with an actual good-guy/bad-guy plot. The resolution of the plot is deceent enough, but could I be satisfied with that? No, I had to add a denouement, which wasn't terrible, until the last paragraph, which is just fucking stupid.

 

[intim8]

"I watched. She was all mine now. A moment just for the two of us"

Ultimately I think this made the story much more satisfying

Hell yeah it did. And more, it kept the promise of the category, the meat of voyeurism, that the voyeur feels part of the action, or like there is a relationship there, even if it is inherently one-sided.

The thought process you describe is spot on, it's what turned it from a stroker to something meaningful.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Just one?

I won't name one because the one that probably actually is the best and has the strongest characters got panned hard specifically for it's 'contrived' ending and unrelatable characters by a certain literary expert here, so what do I know?

 

[StillStunned]

Hell yeah it did. And more, it kept the promise of the category, the meat of voyeurism, that the voyeur feels part of the action, or like there is a relationship there, even if it is inherently one-sided.

The thought process you describe is spot on, it's what turned it from a stroker to something meaningful.

I dove headfirst into this in Love at First Sight, but it's not happy-loving-cuddly-funtimes. "Creepy as fuck" according to the comments, which was the idea, and it's all about that possessiveness, that one-sided relationship.

Speaking of weak endings, like the one you mentioned above, this story has perhaps the cheesiest ending of any I've written. Basically I ran out of things to write, and tried to make the ending funny, or at least clever. It was one of my earlier stores (a whole eight months ago!), and the whole story was experimental for me, but I still feel I could have done better.

 

[intim8]

I dove headfirst into this in Love at First Sight, but it's not happy-loving-cuddly-funtimes. "Creepy as fuck" according to the comments, which was the idea, and it's all about that possessiveness, that one-sided relationship.

Speaking of weak endings, like the one you mentioned above, this story has perhaps the cheesiest ending of any I've written. Basically I ran out of things to write, and tried to make the ending funny, or at least clever. It was one of my earlier stores (a whole eight months ago!), and the whole story was experimental for me, but I still feel I could have done better.

Holy shit, that is creepy AF. In a good way, literarily. The ending wasn't too bad, it upped the squick factor and reinforced the sick nature of this "relationship". If you were going for funny or clever, you totally bombed that one. That last line is exactly what a stalker would say.

Bonus points for the textbook example of when 2p not just works, but is the only way to do it effectively.

When a movie short of this is made, the soundtrack will be "Every Breath You Take" by The Police.

 

[TheLobster]

Speaking of weak endings, like the one you mentioned above, this story has perhaps the cheesiest ending of any I've written. Basically I ran out of things to write, and tried to make the ending funny, or at least clever. It was one of my earlier stores (a whole eight months ago!), and the whole story was experimental for me, but I still feel I could have done better.

I don't think this piece even required a proper ending. You could've just said anything to the effect of "I'm still here, watching" at any point after filling up the creepiness meter (which admittedly you did, several times over).

 

[StillStunned]

When a movie short of this is made, the soundtrack will be "Every Breath You Take" by The Police.

I actually prefer this one:

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'm happy with the ending of Red Scarf, not so much for the things I did as for the things I resisted doing.

I knew a lot of my readers would be expecting a "Pretty Woman" happy-ever-after ending and I'm pretty sure that would've bumped the rating up several points; it's hard to go wrong with a romantic HEA in Lesbian. But I had specific things I wanted to do with that story and one of them was write about how somehow it's okay for good things to end.

From early on, I had a scene in my head that would symbolise the end of that relationship and give the protag an opportunity to cry about it. When I finally got there, it felt contrived and heavy-handed. So I ditched it and wrote something very simply instead, trusting that the previous eleven chapters had given readers the empathy they needed to understand how my protag felt at that moment instead of over-egging the metaphor.

I don't think either of those were good choices in the sense of improving my score/favourites/etc. but they're choices that let me look back on it without cringing.

 

[Lifestyle66]

My latest story went public last night, "Unique Rewards of Yoga - Her Story", Description: "Wife attends sex-filled late-night yoga class for husbands."

Two weeks ago, I posted that first Yoga story to Loving Wives, a story told from the husband's POV while watching a video of his wife having sex at her yoga class. I expected the hits of low ratings and the usual disparaging comments of readers.

Then, I came up with the idea of addressing their criticisms of the "slut wife" by writing that SAME scenario, but from her POV, as the situation builds. She shows her own thoughts about what's happening, and why she's making her choices, always thinking of her husband as she does so.

The ending of this second version goes on a few hours after the first story ending, spelling out what the husband is getting out of the whole scenario. And so far, this version is rising in the ratings MUCH faster than that first one. Less than 12-hours old in the public, it has over 3.6K views and a rating of 2.92/59 votes! I think the first story took two days to raise even close to that number!

So, I might have done something right for that LW crowd!

 

[visioneer]

I like to think that all of my stories end well, but Shock Wave, one of my earlier stories, has a particularly powerful (but not happy) ending. My opinion is that, without an well-defined ending of some sort, there is no point to the story. Often, I will have an ending in mind and will construct the story to get to that point.

 

[onehitwanda]

If forced, I'd elect The Lost girl of Avignon - mainly because of the changes it means for the protagonist.

 

[SyleusSnow]

Endings are hard. I'll nominate ghost story Eight Dates with the Dead - the ending wraps everything up and more than one reader has said it brought a tear to their eye. Even Overcritical, who hates everything, gave it 5 stars. Plus, the last line leaves the reader wondering, depending on how you read it.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Endings are hard. I'll nominate ghost story Eight Dates with the Dead - the ending wraps everything up and more than one reader has said it brought a tear to their eye. Even Overcritical, who hates everything, gave it 5 stars. Plus, the last line leaves the reader wondering, depending on how you read it.

They are even more difficult to do on aircraft carriers.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Thing with writing porn is you can just stop, and it works. To have a really satisfying ending you need a whole story arc first.

My best one is probably Turkish Delight - guys suffering cold January go on holiday to Istanbul. Get the hard sells on carpets, have dinner, sex, met guy who works in hotel, hard sells on carpets, tourism, go clubbing, group sex, one tries to sell them a carpet, more tourism, hammam with happy endings and a suggestion to look at carpets, more tourism, offers of carpet factory tours, shopping, hard sells of carpet, back to the Turkish bath for some heartwarming filth, then home. I'm informed by a Turkish guy that if anything, I've underestimated the appropriate amount of attempted hard selling of carpets.

The ending:
Course, when we get home the following evening, London is still cold and damp, and the marble floors of my flat are fucking freezing.

"Darn," Dan says. "We'll have to go back to Turkey and buy a carpet."

Two short ones where I think the ending works (I know you said one, but most folk don't want to read GM) are Londoner Calling (Erotic Horror, narrated by an eternal hellbeing who feeds on interesting thoughts), and a 750 word one, Denying Alex (EC).

 

[Trionyx]

To pick one ending out of over sixty is too much to ask so I've categorized them.

For a HEA ending, I'd go with Summer on the PCT with an unusual proposal scene.

For a surprise twist, I like Jared, Jennifer and Me. followed closely by Zorro's Girl.

For a sad ending with a ray of hope, I believe Eddie's Christmas Gift fits the bill.

 

[RetroFan]

Crazy Cornelius & the Magic Pills - This Erotic Horror series sees the demise of the two main antagonists in the second last and last chapters. Alistair, the abusive father gets so angry at his loser son Cornelius that he chases him, and while doing so succumbs to spontaneous human combustion, exploding in flames in front of many witnesses in Sydney's Hyde Park. After Alistair's farcical funeral and with several months having gone by, Cornelius is up to his old tricks again, gets stuck in a wardrobe that is being transported from Sydney down to Melbourne, and then after being released from the wardrobe in Melbourne, vanishes without trace into the rainy night, never to be seen or heard of again.

I thought that characters dying from SHC or vanishing without trace under mysterious circumstances might attract some interest and comments, but the only sound from the Erotic Horror crowd was crickets.

 

[bestkeptsecret678]

Nominate one story (yes folks, just the one, can you manage that?) where you're particularly proud of how it ended. And why.

May the best Lover Win

The ending hits all the fundamentals of erotica:

. Handsome yet easy to hate dude turns good
. Publicly gay/privately bi woman finds a FWB she trusts
. Bartenders seducing their customers
. Threesome turns into a twosome with an audience of one
. A plan to rinse, repeat

 

[Omenainen]

Even Overcritical, who hates everything, gave it 5 stars.

Ditto with the story I mentioned as mine, this is what Overcritical said about that one:

A Bumpy Ride, but a Soft Landing

by Overcritical on 09/21/2020
This story gets it just right in my three criteria for excellence in writing: plot development, character development and dialog. I really had no real idea where this was going. It could easily have been written with a bittersweet ending and they maintain a distance and occasional fuck buddies. The actual ending was quite satisfying although the plan was going to be difficult to implement. As people age and get past certain things, difficulties are more easily tolerated - the big picture is more visible and the important goals are kept in sight. 5*

So clearly he doesn’t hate everything. And he has a good taste in at least some stories