Your alternate ending

[Night Prowler]

If you could write an alternative ending, what would it be?

I came up with this:

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Everything is the same as in the book from the beginning until Jake comes back to 2011 for the second time (first time being the nuclear 2011). He comes back to his house, takes his most important stuff and then comes back to the diner. Then he finds a way to destroy it in less than two minutes (bomb/gas leak or something like that). He goes back to 1958, checks if he can come back, but he can't 'cause the portal is gone. So then he kills Frank Dunning, saves that girl from being paralyzed, waits for Sadie to come to Jodie, then kills John Clayton, and then lives happily ever after with Sadie

[DeathStalker]

If you could write an alternative ending, what would it be?

I came up with this:

Show Spoiler

Everything is the same as in the book from the beginning until Jake comes back to 2011 for the second time (first time being the nuclear 2011). He comes back to his house, takes his most important stuff and then comes back to the diner. Then he finds a way to destroy it in less than two minutes (bomb/gas leak or something like that). He goes back to 1958, checks if he can come back, but he can't 'cause the portal is gone. So then he kills Frank Dunning, saves that girl from being paralyzed, waits for Sadie to come to Jodie, then kills John Clayton, and then lives happily ever after with Sadie

Going for the ol' "Happy Ending". OK, I can handle that. I'll have to think some more to see if I could come up with a different ending that I would like.

Welcome to the Board!

[GNTLGNT]

Jake & Sadie end up on "Dancing With The Stars"....The End...

[Douva]

Mr. King delivered exactly the ending I expected from him--

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I would have been thoroughly surprised if the ending had been anything other than bittersweet

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The one thing I wanted to see in the novel but didn't is

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what would happen if somebody from the past went back through the rabbit hole with Jake. And the one approach that I think might have made a passable happy ending would have been to have Jake and Sadie stop Oswald, escape through the rabbit hole, realize that they'd screwed up the future, go back again to create a reset, and then return to a future where there would now be two versions of Sadie Dunhill, the eighty-year-old version (restored by the reset) who'd never met Jake/George and the thirty-year-old version who'd traveled back and forth through the rabbit hole with him. After so much time was spent emphasizing that causing a reset allows the same items (hamburger meat, cash, etc.) to exist both in the unaltered past and in the present, I really wanted to see that happen with a person.

[Danpd66]

I like them Night Prowler and Douva! That is along the lines of what I would want to happen. I'll have to think it through before I post my "alternate ending".

[Cowboy]

Did someone mention "Happy Ending"?

[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?

[Danpd66]

Here is an alternate ending for you!

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One of the Stephen King forum users finds his/her own portal back in time, lets say somewhere around 1961 or so. If it were me I would purchase a '57 Fairlane or '58 Fury and cruise out to Jodie. Upon meeting Jake and telling him where I was from (of which he would have no issues believing since he is a time traveller himself) I would tell him that preventing the assasination of JFK carries dire consequences. Instead of preventing the assasination, I would inform him of the impending danger that Sadie is facing, and how Clayton has been watching their moves. I would assist Jake in stopping Clayton, stand up for Jake as his best man in the wedding and dance with the bride. I would then come back my own time where 11/22/63's ending has changed to a happier version!

That is just one of many possibilities running through my mind...silly I will admit, but hey! A guy can dream can't he?

[Rob_Marc]

Hello all,

I've never been much of a horror fan, so I've never picked up a Stephen King book before (I'm also not much of a reader, yet). This is my first Stephen King book I've ever read, and I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed just about every page.

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I was also so deeply saddened when Sadie was killed,] that I lost interest in the book for about a week. I think it was because I was in love with her (Is that even possible to be in love with a book character?).

But I did finish it, and really enjoyed the ending.

I found initial interest in the book when I saw King's interview on Today. At many times, I found it very difficult to even put the book down.

Back to the topic at hand, I think my ending would involve Jake being

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successful with Sadie at stopping Oswald, and him taking her back to the present to get her face fixed, and living happily ever after.

But I guess that's not the way King writes books. I would have liked to see his take on

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someone coming from 50 years in the past, and how much of a culture shock it would be for her. It would be interesting to see someone all of a sudden being bombarded with all the changes that have happened since then. I'm only 30, so the '60's are well before my time, and I can't imagine how much has changed since then. It's one thing to live through those years and see the changes as it happened. They wouldn't be noticed as much for someone who lived through them than if someone, say, slept for 50 years and woke up a la Rip Van Wrinkle.

-Robert in Tx.

[Danpd66]

Robert, it is perfectly understandable to have fallen in love with Sadie, I know I did. My only saving grace is that she isn't real so my wife isn't TOO upset when I talk about her...