The Lost Art of Knowing Where to Stop

I recently found on my hands, a lot more free time than I have had in months and what better way to spend it than to indulge in some good old reading. As I scoured my cluttered bookshelf for something to read, my eyes fell upon an entire series that I hadn’t read in quite some time. The Clifton Chronicles by Jeffery Archer.

The series overall was pretty good and well received, but in the later books you sense a hint of urgency, a moment of thoughtlessness and a plot not withholding, a detail which was clearly not fully thought out. That brings me perfectly onto the point of my post: Ending an Endeavor at the right time. Modern Culture is filled to the brim with examples of creations suffering from their own success. Being dragged and stretched out to satisfy a publisher, a producer or in some cases the fans. Whatever project suffers such a fate; it changes forever, eternally remaining a shell of what it once was.

And that is exactly what happened to the aforementioned series. The story was engaging and addictive till about the 4th book: “Be Careful What You Wish For” but then all that nosedives. The plot would become too complex and had large gaping holes that led you to the conclusion long before you even knew what the problem was. The plot took irrational unrealistic turns, and the story became difficult to keep up with. Jeffery Archer, the author would eventually kill the series off three books later but by then the damage was done and the series was a rotting corpse. This begs the question how would we have remembered The Clifton Chronicles if it concluded at its peak?

History remains testament to the fact that a creation can live despite facing abandonment by its creators. Arthur Conan Doyle the legendary writer of Sherlock Holmes, originally killed his sleuth off in 1893 in the appropriately named story: “The Final Problem”. However public outcry was of such intensity that he was forced to resurrect his detective.

The Phenomena is not only limited to books, but the Modern entertainment industry also offers a few notable examples, both of works dragged to try and fulfill the greed of the modern homo-sapien and of a few shining gems that ended at just the right time. One of the Best TV shows according to IMBD is “Breaking Bad”, sure it may be five seasons long, but they kept the pace up and went out with a bang. We have “Friends’’ with practically every episode being perfectly executed. The same is true for one of my favorite animated TV shows “Gravity Falls”. But then on the other side of the spectrum there are shows like “The Walking Dead”, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Big Bang Theory” that have more episodes than I can possibly watch in a lifetime. “The Fast and Furious” Series has been witnessing a notable downfall in the last few years and has become less of a car enthusiast movie and more of your typical big budget action films with a few cool cars shown here and there. Then there’s “Top Gear”, at one time the most popular show on TV, but now it rarely crosses the 4 million viewership mark. It’s time to take the show off air and either redo it or axe it completely.

Speaking of Cars, what is up with all the unworthy successors being released to ionic 90’s supercars. Toyota just made a Frankenstein with BMW and called it a Supra destroying its rich heritage. Mazda released the RX-8 (Which I really love but…) managing to forever kill off the rotary that it had managed to establish with the RX-7. Mitsubishi is a fading light in the dark and the R35 GT-R is car for anime fanboys.

I may not have understood it back then but the quote from “The Dark Knight” really makes sense:
“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

And that’s basically the crux of the matter, you either go off with a bang or slowly destroy your work and fade into obscurity.