Inspiration - The Writers' Journey _Book Winner and Next book

First the winner of Refuge is Sunsinger and I'll be emailing soon. The next book up is the second of the Katherine Miller mysteries, Requiem murder. Here's a bit about the book. The current organist at St. Stephens has left. Katherine is part of the search committee to find a new one. The moment she hears Roger Brandon's artistry she knows he's the one. His playing is enough to tempt the angels. He accepts the position and brings trouble to the church choir. He is handsome and charismatic and charms the women of the church. Three of the women are part of Katherine's neighborhood. She begins to suspect his dark secret. Can she learn before tragedy strikes.

Now to Vogler and the final step in the writer's journey. This is called Return with the Elixir. Kind of a neat way of saying the end. Now stories can end happily or tragically. They can be closed ended or open ended, but the ending must be satisfactory. Most of the stories I write are closed end and I hope satisfactory. What happens is the character or characters bring the lessons they have learned to the present and this generally results in changes, or not. Some characters don't learn and they may need to repeat their journey again.

What I really found interesting is Vogler's reasons for faulty endings. these are things that leave the reader unsatisfied. One is loose ends. Right now I'm dealing with the fourth book in a four book series and trying to make sure nothing is left unresolved. This can be hard but slowly it's coming into focus. Another problem is too many endings. I've read books where I believe the end has been reached and then the author continues on to end yet again. The ending cat be abrupt and not give the reader time to process what the story has meant. I think I've been guilty of this several times. When an editor pointed this out to me several times I realized the reason the story ended like this was there was to be a sequel. Thus the ending had to change,

During the many weeks of using this book as an inspiration for my own writing and perhaps giving other readers some hints about their journey, I've learned a lot, questioned frequently. Hopefully you have as well