Author Dodie Smith in "I Capture the Castle" foreshadowed her novel's ambiguous ending through this quote from the novel: "I get the feeling I do on finishing a novel with a brick-wall happy ending – I mean the kind of ending when you never think any more about the characters."
What kind of satisfaction is there in a novel's ending where the reader interprets what happens to the characters? Do readers tend to think about what happens to a character after a "brick-wall happy ending"? Is an ambiguous ending better suited to stories where the ending could be bittersweet or sad? What kind of situations merit the reader coming up with their own ending, instead of the author revealing how they imagine everything to end?
An ambiguous ending to a novel will undoubtedly leave open the window to future renditions. Even in a happy-ending scenario, there is potential for reversal of fortune (leading to another compilation). There is always the possibility that the reader massaged the plot into a flavor to their convenient liking; one the author could conceivably exploit into several more chapters, or sequels. – lofreire7 years ago
These also serve as fodder for fanfictions. – Vishnu Unnithan7 years ago