Thread: Bombshell at the End

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(DISCLAIMER: This story contains adult language and themes.)



This is a piece of creepypasta, or an anonymously-written scary story that is copy "pasted" around the Internet.

I have read stories with a bombshell ending that have lingered with me for days. However most of the time it cheapens the story for me, only because it conjures up nearly every urban legend I've heard. 'Lucky you didn't turn on the light.' and all that nonsense.
But thats just my opinion.

Any ending that unravels all that has gone before cheats the reader. That's my personal opinion, and is one reason - there are others - why I don't read Lovecraft.

The twist in the tail is the making of a short story, but the types being described are poor efforts by my reckoning. Done well it ties the whole thing up, not quite how you were expecting. It should be a revelation, not so outrageously different from the original that you feel cheated, Kipling does it beautifully.

That's different. A bit of a twist, yes. An epiphany. An 'aha' moment. But not an outrageous 'bombshell'. In the classic murder mystery the least suspected is sometimes the killer, but once the truth is revealed all the bits and pieces fall into place. Just don't bring a stranger in on the last page, say 'here's the killer', and expect applause.

Ohhh! You're talking about Ellery Queen!

It's an old ploy that dates back to ancient ... very ancient Greek theater - the Deus ex Machina. Literally, "the god machine". In ancient Greek drama, when all else failed, one of the gods would swoop down, literally in a machine lowered from above, to resolve the remaining dilemmas and tie up all the loose ends. It is, as Olly and Garza have noted, a cheap escape hatch for writers who have written themselves into a corner.

I think it is a marvelous device, when pulled off skillfully. O. Henry The Gift of the Magi, The Specialty of the House by Stanley Ellin, and Chrysalis by Ray Bradbury are examples that come to mind from my fairly limited reading history. I remember shouting and shivering on reading the last line of The Specialty of the House when I was eighteen or so. This type of bombshell ending, slyly done, casts everything that has come before in a new light, be it ironic, horrific or wondrous. I do wonder if most or all of the bombshell endings have been used up? Through TV, movies ect. maybe we've seen 'em all? Like the Twilight Zone episode where the guy is just getting on the planetary exchange spaceship and his girlfriend the translator shouts up at him that the bible of the aliens who have brought peace to Earth, How to Serve Man, is actually a cookbook is really a twist on an earlier twist, The Specialty of the House.

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Done well, it's absolutely brilliant. Done badly, it makes the work look amateurish.

Yeah the Sixth Sense is an excellent example. Check them out if you get a chance, Caelum. Pretty sure you'll enjoy. They're most delicious when the revelation is left to the final few words.