I long to do a magic last act, such as the tearful letter from Jacinta in Dean Francis Alfar's Salamanca. The initial rush of excitement will have generally subsided, and one's store of words and beautiful turns of phrases have become depleted or stilted. Sometimes, one finds himself in an unconscious hurry to finish off the tale, just because. Two things-a book and a movie-made me think about the way endings should come for those of us who love stories.

I finished Diane Setterfield's much-praised novel, The Thirteenth Tale, a little more than three weeks ago, and had initially raved about its beautiful beginning (it contained great paragraphs about writing and reading-which tickled the bookworm in me), even recommending it to some friends. "You must buy the book," I told them. (Two did.)

But then the love affair quickly fizzled for me when the magic of Setterfield's prose segued to mere plodding once she shifted gears to accommodate the twists that usually come for stories like these. In the end, I turned the last page disappointed over something that had so much promise at the start, but turned out to be a dud in the end. Still, it was an entertaining read, but it made me wonder how Setterfield came to such an uninspired last act. In my reflection, I realize that in my stories as well, going towards an appropriate and/or satisfying ending is something quite hard to do. I long to do a magic last act, such as the tearful letter from Jacinta in Dean Francis Alfar's Salamanca. The initial rush of excitement will have generally subsided, and one's store of words and beautiful turns of phrases have become depleted or stilted. Sometimes, one finds himself in an unconscious hurry to finish off the tale, just because.

Last Wednesday, for my Film Appreciation class, I watched Giuseppe Tornatore's extended version of his award-winning Cinema Paradiso from 1989. It was no longer the movie I remember loving so much. This version, released in 2003, restores the 51 minutes that Harvey Feinstein of Miramax had cut from the original film, deleted scenes that contain an extended explication of the aborted love affair between Toto and Elena.

I hated the last hour so much, it felt like a betrayal. It did not belong at all to what can be considered the heart of the film, which is the original first two hours. Roger Ebert had reviewed the 2003 version once, and had written: "I must confess that the shorter version of Cinema Paradiso is a better film than the longer. Harvey was right. The 170-minute cut overstays its welcome, and continues after its natural climax. Still, I'm happy to have seen it - not as an alternate version, but as the ultimate exercise in viewing deleted scenes. Anyone who loves the film will indeed be curious about 'what really happened to the love of a lifetime,' and it is good to know. I hope, however, that this new version doesn't replace the old one on the video shelves; the ideal solution would be a DVD with the 1988 version on one side and the 2002 version on the other."

The Thirteenth Tale seems to me to be a case of a botched ending because the author has decided to rush towards the finish, while still accommodating an uninspired twist. Nuovo Cinema Paradiso is the complete opposite: it goes on and on, and does not seem to know when to stop.

Endings are crucial. I quote The New York Times' Charles McGrath quoting somebody else in understanding the value of narrative closure: "In The Sense of an Ending, a classic text of literary theory, the critic Frank Kermode says we crave endings for the same reason that some religious sects look forward to the Apocalypse-because it's the ending that gives shape and meaning to the otherwise random events that precede it."

I'm sharing something about endings I got from Timothy Montes, and which I shared with my LitCritters Writing Workshop a few Saturdays ago: as in beginnings, story endings come in varied forms. The difficulty with endings is that you cannot isolate it from the rest of a story. The resolution of a conflict depends upon past events in a story.

What should be emphasized, though, is the importance of endings not only in giving closure to a plot but also in conveying a "sense" of ending. The emotional tone of the ending of a story is what readers carry along with them after they finish reading your story. Many "modern" stories are open-ended, with conflicts unresolved and characters left hanging, but the resolution lies with the tone, with the revelation of a powerful insight, or even just by the pure lyricism of the language.

A good way to imagine endings would be through music. Carlos Ojeda Aureus likens the ending of Nick Joaquin's "May Day Eve" with the coda of a Beethoven symphony with the different thematic strands woven together in a glorious ending by tympani and clashing cymbals; some stories by Charlson Ong end like fragile concertos of Chopin, as a ballerina ends a dance with one foot in the air. Indeed, whole stories can be likened to music in architectonic design if not in effect. Let us take a look at some endings. Note the sense of finality, of tension between closure and open-endedness, of emphasis - of a sense of a door closing.

There is certain closure, as from "The Homing Mandarin" by Jaime An Lim: "Now we could finally lay to rest our dream of his return. It was over: the hope, the uncertainty, and the silent wait by the window for an old man leading his long weary shadow home."

There is closure with tail flick, as from "Nilda" by Angelo Rodriguez Lacuesta: "Papa's marker is a starry black slab gleaming with silver flecks, smooth and seamless at the top, bevelled at the edges, like a dark gem. We gather here only once a year, to collect ourselves and perhaps to celebrate another year, another change of seasons. I don't know where they buried Moroy, although I am sure he is somewhere close by."

There is the frozen moment, as from "Passengers" by Luis Joaquin Katigbak: "There is an endless road somewhere, and on that road speeds a hand-me-down rattletrap bus on an endless trip, and somewhere near the back of that bus, you and I are snugly squeezed into one of the two-seater benches, with you next to the window and me next to the aisle, holding hands like schoolchildren, talking, occasionally smiling at each other, looking like we will never let go."

There is the use of symbols and primal images, as from "Midsummer" by Manuel Arguilla: "He walked a step behind, the bull lumbering in front. More than ever he was conscious of her person. She carried the jar on her head without holding it. Her hands swung to her even steps. He threw back his square shoulders, lifted his chin, and sniffed the motionless air. He felt strong. He felt very strong. He felt that he could follow the slender, lithe figure ahead of him to the ends of the world."

There is the repetition of the beginning paragraph as from the baroque "May Day Eve" by Nick Joaquin.

Then there is the flashback or the fade out, as from "The Heavenly Animal" by Jayne Anne Phillips: "Once it was Christmas day. They were driving from home, from the house their father had built in the country. A deer jumped the road in front of them, clearing the snow, the pavement, the fences of the fields, in two bounds. Beyond its arc the hills rumpled in snow. The narrow road wound through white meadows, across the creek, and on. Her father was driving. Her brothers had shining play pistols with leather holsters. Her mother wore clip-on earrings of tiny wreaths. They were all dressed in new clothes, and they moved down the road, through the trees."

Great ending complete us.