Your alternate ending

**momone53** · January 9th, 2012

Rob, welcome to the board. I hope you will continue to read Stephen King, or anyone elese for that matter. It can take to worlds beyond your imagining. Try the Dark Tower books, I think you will find that there is not much horror there. Also, Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption and the Body. Good luck and have fun.

And may you have twice the number.

**Oil-man** · January 9th, 2012

Greetings all.

I was surprised to see this forum is turned off during the weekend. Oh well.

I thoroughly enjoyed 11/22/63. There was one loose end in the novel that I have incorporated into an alternate ending.

You may recall that Jake mentioned once or twice that when he was a child, his dog got out of the yard and was run over and killed by a truck. What if, in order to reset the butterfly effect all the way, it was Later-Jake who has to go to Younger-Jakes house, let the dog out of the yard and then kill it with a truck. That would be ironic, to say the least.

**GNTLGNT** · January 9th, 2012

Originally Posted by PrisonerNumber6

Here's what J.R.R. Tolkien had to say about the nature of endings. He was talking about fantasy tales yet I can't help but think it has wider applicability. According to Tolkien, "The verbal ending-usually held to be as typical of the end as "Once Upon a Time" is of the beginning-"and they lived happily ever after" is an artificial device. It doesn't deceive anybody." Tolkien says "End phrases of this kind are to be compared to the margins and frames of pictures, and are no more to be thought of as the real end of any particular fragment of the seamless Web of Story than the frame is of the visionary scene, or the casement of the Outer World."

On the words an author chooses to end a story Tolkien commented, "These phrases may be plain or elaborate, simple or extravagant, as artificial and as necessary as frames plain, or carved, or gilded. "And if they haven't gone away they are still there." "My story is done - see there is a little mouse; anyone who catches it may make himself a fine fur cap of it." "And they lived happily ever after.” “And when the wedding was over, they sent me home with little paper shoes on a causeway of glass.”
It was Tolkien’s belief that these type of endings were effective because they, “Have a greater sense and grasp of the endlessness of the World of Story than most modern “realistic” stories, already hemmed within the narrow confines of their own small time.”

Contrariwise, Mr. K has always said, “Know when to right The End.” He’s also, however, the same guy who called endings “Paltry things.” Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle.

What do you think?

I think you're correct, that somewhere in the middle may be true...but I can't help think that no story every TRULY ends, because our own imaginations will continue to gift characters with "life" within the confines of our own minds...and those storylines are indeed endless....

**tmac61** · January 9th, 2012

Rob, your alternate ending is the same thing I would have liked to have seen, but being a long time (since 1980) Stephen King fan, I found the ending to be classic King, open ended, and bittersweet.

**Srbo** · January 9th, 2012

Don`t know.
I know it`s fun to play the game, but I like the ending just the way it is...

**plastic_cactus** · January 9th, 2012

Why didn't jake simply go back to jodie, meet sadie again, fall in love and live ALMOST the rest of his life with her? (during this period he would have long since explained the entire story of how they met before and how he was a time-traveler). Then, when the time was right (by then, an elderly man) he would say goodbye to his true love and leave that version of history through the rabbit hole. Then he would return one more time to reset everything then go back through the rabbit hole and let it "pop" out of existence once and for all.
This way he would be able to spend nearly his entire life with the woman and town he loved and there would be no consequences (or close to no consequences; as Mr. King points out, repeated journeys in and out of the rabbit hole leaves residue).

**fushingfeef** · January 10th, 2012

I kept waiting for

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**Danpd66** · January 10th, 2012

Fushingfeef, I was kind of expecting that as well.

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**not_nadine** · January 10th, 2012

I was sort of expecting Jake/George to

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**Welvice** · January 10th, 2012

I really would like to know how Sadie would have reacted to the world of 2011. With and without nuclear war outcomes. I think all the electronica we use nowadays could be kind of shocking for her. With that, what if the president still was Obama, that would be a shock for a person who actually lived in a time of racism. But she might react the same to Hilary Clinton being the president of the USA, because feminism was a growing thing in the 60s as well. She might have mistrusted Jake after discovering that there HAD been a nuclear war, even though Jake said there wouldn't be, though it wouldn't be Jake's fault at all. I really would have loved to see Sadie entering the world of 2011.