Two endings for the family story: keep both ideas available
By Erik Nilsen · Kroni3 min read
Your family invents a story about a dragon looking for a home. One child wants the dragon to stay in the town. Another wants it to fly onwards. An adult adds a third ending and starts telling it as though it has already been chosen. The conversation now becomes about who owns the story.
Try stopping at the point where ideas diverge. You already share a beginning. The ending can have its own arrangement without declaring any suggestion bad.
Find out which kind of story you are making
Ask whether you want one combined story or several versions. A shared project need not always finish with one definitive answer. If the aim is to play with ideas, two endings can be the activity itself.
Choose between three arrangements:
| Arrangement | How the ending is decided |
|---|---|
| Parallel endings | Each participant tells their version from the same point |
| Storyteller’s turn | The agreed storyteller finishes this round; someone else gets the next |
| Shared ending | Everyone offers a suggestion and you explore an outcome to use together |
Choose before somebody finishes narrating. Assigning turns after the adult has written an ending leaves little actual room for others.
Try the dragon’s two possibilities
Stop where the dragon lands at the town gate. The child wanting it to stay describes what happens the next morning. The child wanting another journey describes where it flies. Listeners can ask questions after each version.
Ask “what happens next in your version?” rather than “why did you not choose the other ending?” Participants can develop their ideas without defending them against the whole group’s alternatives.
If you need one conclusion
Perhaps you want to read one short story aloud later. Agree who chooses that version, or find an outcome allowing contributions to remain. The dragon could live in town for a while and travel later, but only if the storytellers actually want that combination.
A compromise is a suggestion, not automatically more correct than the original ideas. You can also keep two versions and choose which one to read on this occasion.
Let the adult participate as a participant
Adults can offer an ending when others can offer theirs too. It need not contain a hidden lesson about what the dragon ought to learn. If a child wants to finish before the story is complete, clarify whether the others continue or the project waits.
Next time, choose the storytelling arrangement at the start. The disagreement can then concern interesting possibilities inside the story, with an agreement about how each idea gets room.
