Dec
08

by Sheila Athens
Originally published in WriteOn! Fall 2020

While the editors of WriteOn! asked me to write about endings, I must start at the beginning. These two parts of story are inextricably linked together.

First, though, let’s get some basics out of the way. A good opening to a novel contains a promise to the reader. It tells her that the book will be funny or spooky or romantic or quirky or whatever. The ending, therefore, should be the fulfillment of that promise. “[Expectations] will differ depending on the genre,” wrote author and bookstagrammer Bradeigh Godfrey recently. “For romance, there has to be an HEA (Happy Ever After) or a happy for now. For mystery, the crime needs to be solved.” Even in books where an HEA isn’t an expectation of the genre, readers usually like a happy, hopeful ending. They want to feel better about the world once they’ve invested the time to read the book.

In many well-loved novels, the seeds of the ending are sown into the first page or even the first paragraph of the book. Even if the reader doesn’t specifically remember how the book started, a good ending will give her a sense that the story has come full circle, that the journey which started the book has reached a satisfying ending. When I finish reading a novel, I almost always turn immediately back to the first page to see how the ending ties in with the beginning.