Is this a good ending?

After reading a bunch of great vampire books like I am legend and bloodsucking freaks and many others I had an urge to write a vampire book of my own. I started writing an outline of the overall plot and it all seemed to be going well except for the ending. I have an idea for an ending, but I don't know whether its good or not. The basic story is a vampire who works at a blood testing center at a hospital.
He tests most of the blood, but keeps other blood to drink later so he won't attack people for their blood. At the end i had an idea that he drinks some blood from somebody, but he gets AIDS from the blood or some other blood disease I can't think of. Its not an ending meant to make fun of a disease, I just thought it would be ironic for him to get some kind of disease from blood since vampires never seem to get diseases from blood. is that a good ending or should I alter it a bit, I'm a bit hesitant on whether it concludes the story in a good enough way.

Somewhere, there's a Mammoth book of vampire stories-
one has a bunch of babies getting AIDS somehow, don't remember the details, though...

O:

About 15 years ago a lot of vampire books explored the AIDS possibilities and sort of did it to death, to herniate the cliche. It's a bit obvious, but then again, I've been accused of writing crap endings, so go with what you think will work. The ending should resolve the conflict of the story in a way that's satisfying to the reader, not just end because you've run out of stuff to say or you figure you have enough pages.

You could just write it and one of three things will happen:

1. You love it.

2. You hate it, chuck it, and start over.

3. As you write, some delightful new theme emerges and carries you away to a climactic conclusion you'd never even imagined possible.

Either way, writing something is better than writing nothing--even if it's wrong, it's right that you write. (Ah, no, cheesy!)

Thanks for raising this question; pondering it helped me to resolve something I've been wrestling with myself.
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chris wrote:

O: About 15 years ago a lot of vampire books explored the AIDS possibilities and sort of did it to death, to herniate the cliche. It's a bit obvious, but then again, I've been accused of writing crap endings, so go with what you think will work. The ending should resolve the conflict of the story in a way that's satisfying to the reader, not just end because you've run out of stuff to say or you figure you have enough pages.

i didn't know vampire books already explored AIDS, I should probably rework the ending a bit to make sure it fits with the rest of the story. i want to write a vampire book that doesn't suck...ok that was bad. I remember the ending of the I am Legend book as being one of my favorite book endings ever, it was masterfully done and so tragic.

Speaking of endings, I am having some trouble with endings again. My new short story is all about Censorship, in this story the government pretty much takes care of the kids while the parents do other stuff. The kids are given a sort of virtual world device to play around in, kinda like GTA but much more than that. In this world they can create life, destroy it, make cities rise from the ground etc. Pretty much anything can be done, it is used as a distraction device that many kids become obsessed with. Kind of like video games today.

I have two endings in mind, one that is sad and one that will probably piss people off. The first one is the one I am leaning towards, in this ending one of the two main characters becomes so obsessed with creating chaos in the virtual world that he decides to try it in the real world. He gets his hands on a gun and during a study session in class he pulls it out and takes the class hostage. Of course something goes wrong and a few people are killed including both main characters. After this happens the media starts to blame everything on the virtual world device instead of the crappy parents. That is as far as i got for that ending.

The other ending is a bit more radical and as I said before it might piss off a few people. The story starts out with one of the main characters in the virtual world watching as he makes the city he is in get destroyed. In the virtual world game, more than one kid can play at once, so the two main characters find a way to hack into the mainframe of the device so they can control how the other kids control their worlds. Again something goes wrong as it always does and the more messed up kid who would have done the school shooting before gets his brain a bit messed up when connecting the the worlds of the other kids.
This messes up the other kids too and when they get out of the virtual world and back into reality they suddenly have the violent urges that the messed up kid has. The last part is a bit similar to the other ending, but in this one all the kids who have the virtual world devices start going off the deep end. All around the city there are reports of shootings at schools and people panicking. Also, since adults use the virtual world devices too, they are messed up as well and start rioting.

This is where people may get a bit pissed off. after all the rioting starts getting worse and worse, the boy who isn't messed up is standing in an area weirdly similar to where he was at the start of the book. All around him buildings are being destroyed and people are going crazy, then all of a sudden his vision blurs and turns black. The boy then wakes up in his house and unplugs himself from the virtual world. Turns out the whole story was what this kid did in the virtual world. I don't know if people will like that ending, I suppose I could also do an ending where when the buildings getting destroyed actually happens and the boy's vision going black is him dieing somehow. A bit depressing but also less likely to piss people off.

The virtual world ending

like the second one has more of a twist
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TATATA wrote:

The virtual world ending like the second one has more of a twist

I like the virtual ending alot too, I just dont want it to seem like a cop out ending.

I'll be honest -- unless it's done extremely well, I'd feel like it was a cop out. If you're going to destroy a city, make it mean something. If you're going to hurt your characters, make it change them.

Actions need to have consequences. "And then she woke up" fails nine times out of ten -- sure, it gives the character an opportunity to do things right the second time around, but if it's done wrong, it cheapens what you've just put the reader through.
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Well, I guess you left me with some feathers in my hand.

Vampires are the undead. They don't die, they don't get diseases.
And the "vampire gets AIDS" thing has been played out in way too many short stories back in the 80s.

Oliverbritten wrote:

Turns out the whole story was what this kid did in the virtual world.

Lame.
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It finally happened. My conscience stopped working. I've never felt so free.

Kar98 wrote:

Vampires are the undead. They don't die, they don't get diseases. And the "vampire gets AIDS" thing has been played out in way too many short stories back in the 80s. Oliverbritten wrote: Turns out the whole story was what this kid did in the virtual world. Lame.

Yeah I think it probably would be lame, I just thinking of some different endings and that was one of them.

Lauren wrote:

I'll be honest -- unless it's done extremely well, I'd feel like it was a cop out. If you're going to destroy a city, make it mean something. If you're going to hurt your characters, make it change them. Actions need to have consequences. "And then she woke up" fails nine times out of ten -- sure, it gives the character an opportunity to do things right the second time around, but if it's done wrong, it cheapens what you've just put the reader through.

Yeah, I think it makes more sense to not have the whole thing be a virtual world twist at the end. I wouldn't want to make it seem like I am doing a cop out ending.

Just because an idea has been used doesn't mean you can't tell a good story out of it. David Brin did a virtual worlds story where the end *seemed* to be 'they all woke up.' It wound up with the characters unsure if they'd actually been woken up or not, and they were going to spend the rest of their lives wondering if this was the real world.

Dan Simmons wrote a story about a dying man deliberately giving a vampire-like creature AIDs. At least, that's what the plot was. The real theme of the story is, if you know you're dying, how far will you go to right a wrong? And trust me, what I've given you here is not a spoiler.

So yes, vampire contracts AIDS after deliberately setting out not to hurt humans is an interesting idea. But the story can't be plot-driven. There's got to be some theme, even an ironic one, that takes it beyond "bad things happen to good vampires." Maybe you should start with your ending. Then tell the story from the beginning so that the reader can view the ongoing actions and relate them thematicly to the visible conclusion.

sgt_steve wrote:

Just because an idea has been used doesn't mean you can't tell a good story out of it. David Brin did a virtual worlds story where the end *seemed* to be 'they all woke up.' It wound up with the characters unsure if they'd actually been woken up or not, and they were going to spend the rest of their lives wondering if this was the real world. Dan Simmons wrote a story about a dying man deliberately giving a vampire-like creature AIDs. At least, that's what the plot was. The real theme of the story is, if you know you're dying, how far will you go to right a wrong? And trust me, what I've given you here is not a spoiler. So yes, vampire contracts AIDS after deliberately setting out not to hurt humans is an interesting idea. But the story can't be plot-driven. There's got to be some theme, even an ironic one, that takes it beyond "bad things happen to good vampires." Maybe you should start with your ending. Then tell the story from the beginning so that the reader can view the ongoing actions and relate them thematicly to the visible conclusion.

I've been thinking about the ending alot and I think that overall the ending which has one of the characters doing the school shooting would be more interesting. In alot of books about a dystopian future, the ending is usually something gets changed in the world or with the main character. I think having an ending where it shows the harsh reality that the characters have to deal with where they can't change their world would work better.

In this stories case since it is focused on 2 teenagers, people might expect a happy ending or an ending that changed the characters world in some way. Many people would not expect to read a book where the 2 main characters who happen to be kids both die. I will still think about the ending a bit just to make sure I have it right,

Thanks for the advice with the ending, I got it figured out. i dont know if any of you remember a story idea I posted a while back, the one about the guy who dies and wakes up in a rehab center for the dead. Anyway, I am having a tough time with the ending for that story, I am fine with the rest but for some reason the ending is bugging me. The story is a very dark comedy, so i dont want to ending to be too sad or too funny. A mix would be perfect. Anyway, here is a quick intro to how all the endings will start to save some time.

After killing his friend in the rehab center because she told him that she wants to see what would happen if she died again, some people from the rehab center find the body of the girl and one of them realizes what he did to her. He decides to take mercy on him, and make it look like he was being the authority figure. He kills the main character, this is where I have some trouble. All the endings start with him and her dieing, but I cant figure out which of these endings would suit the story better.

1. He wakes up buried underground in a coffin and starts freaking out. Thats pretty much it. The girls fate is ironic, she wakes up in a forest where her body was dumped.

2. He wakes up in a morgue and sees a mortician doing "things" with one of the bodies. The mortician freaks out and begs him not to tell anyone what he was doing with the body. Main guy agrees, but only if the mortician doesnt tell anyone about him waking up. They both agree and the main guy leaves the morgue. A bit silly and gross, but for some reason it made me chuckle.

3. He wakes up back at his house a few minutes before he was about to kill the girl he ends up befriending at the rehab center. He exits his house and starts driving down a empty road when he see's her on the side of the road trying to hitchhike. He lets her into his car and takes her where she wants to go. There is mostly silence between them as he drives her. When they get to where she wants to be dropped off she thanks him and leaves the car. He looks after her and looks at the knife he thinks he was going to use on her thinking that maybe the whole rehab center was a bad dream. Instead he puts the knife away and drives back home.

3 is a bit sappy, but I kinda like it. Not as much as 1 which as some of you may have noticed, is a homage to the Dutch film Spoorloos aka The Vanishing which had a similar ending.