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.
Regardless of the type of story being written, the beginning of the novel is where the writer establishes the stakes for the story. Without clearly established stakes, the entire story will fall flat, and a successful ending will be impossible to achieve. As the protagonist makes her way through the story, the stakes get higher, the trouble gets bigger, and the story continues to explore the way the world works. The ending of the story is set up by everything that comes before it. Each of these forces will converge at the climax and come to a conclusion with the ending of the story.
Author and WFWA member Joan Fernandez recently mentioned to me that a book she read had felt rushed at the end. Two reasons for this can be that a book wraps up too quickly after the climax scene or too much information about the character’s backstory and/or growth is held to the end, rather than being woven throughout. The protagonist’s change from the beginning to the end of the novel should be a gradual process rather than a sudden event at the end. I think of that change as a long staircase, with each scene being one of the stair steps along the character’s journey.
Next, a potentially controversial opinion: I highly suggest that you not withhold information from the reader in order to create a surprise twist at the end. I know this technique is popular now, especially in genres that contain more suspense, but to me, it feels like cheating the reader. Why? Because if the reader has been tight inside Claire’s head for 300 pages, she would have SEEN the information contained in the twist while she was in there. Instead of relying on a twist that involves information withheld from the reader, keep this in mind: The interesting part of the story is WHY a character does what she does, not WHAT she does. Fiction, after all, is the study of human nature. The story is not in what happens EXTERNALLY. The story is in what happens INTERNALLY. Let us deep inside your POV character’s mind, seeing all of her thoughts and understanding why she makes the decisions she makes. We BECOME the character as we read the book. We’re navigating the world through her POV, so we should have access to all the information she has inside her head.
As screenwriter Michael Arndt teaches us in his video Endings: The Good, the Bad and the Insanely Great, the climax is where the meaning of the story is revealed. Yes, stories are meant to entertain, but they also teach us to navigate the world around us. The climax and the ending are where we learn things that we can later apply to our own lives, whether those lessons are about romantic love or about our value as individuals or about finding our place in the world.
In a recent webinar titled “The Bigger Canvas and How to Use It,” agent and writing teacher Donald Maass encouraged writers to think about how their novel can end in a happy, hopeful way, but not in the expected way. Here is his challenge: “If your happy ending became illegal, what other satisfying ending would you come up with?” On a similar note, Michael Arndt teaches this in the video referenced above.
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A bad ending = positive + predictable
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A good ending = positive + surprising
For an ending to feel complete, each of the significant story threads needs to have been resolved. The reader is likely to feel unsatisfied if, for example, Hugh and Lindsey have been flirting throughout the entire book, but the ending doesn’t tell the reader if they end up together.
Regardless of the type of ending, the way a story ends cements our opinion of the book. Is it a book that we recommend to our friends, or is it one we complain about when our book club members talk about their recent reads? Since so many books are sold via word-of-mouth advertising, this is a critical question. As a writer, it’s important to remember this paraphrased saying: “A good hook will sell this book. A good ending will sell the author’s next book.”
We come to story to FEEL something, to learn how to make our way in this world. As story consultant Lisa Cron has said, “Emotions aren’t the monkey wrench in the system. Emotions ARE the system.” I often can’t remember the exact details of a book, but I will always remember how I felt when I closed the back cover. It reminds me of that famous quote by Maya Angelou: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
With this in mind, what feeling do you want readers to have when they close your book? How will the ending you have planned evoke that emotion in your reader?
My final word on endings: Keep in mind that typing the end of your story does NOT mean that you are finished with your novel. Completing your first draft is cause for celebration, but revision is by far the more important part of the writing process. After several rounds of revisions, your entire manuscript will become richer and more meaningful, from beginning to end.
Checklist for Analyzing the End of Your Novel
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Does the ending of the book follow the conventions of the genre in which you are writing?
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Can you/should you tweak the first page of your novel so that it ties more closely to the end of the story?
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How can you engineer your story so that even more meaning is revealed in your climax scene?
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Are all major story threads resolved by the end?
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If you left a story thread unresolved, what is your reason for doing so?
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Does the protagonist have a gradual change throughout the book, rather than lumping all the change at the end?
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When the reader is inside a character's head, is she privy to all the information that the character would know?
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As Donald Maass said, “If your happy ending became illegal, what other satisfying ending would you come up with?”
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How can you revise your ending to amp up the feeling you want the reader to have when she finishes the book?
Sheila Athens writes smart fiction set where the South meets the Sunshine state. Her stories are about women seeking to find the peace we all deserve—whether they’re battling an external foe or an internal one (or both). Readers are drawn to her work because they believe that everyday heroes can make a difference in our world. You can find her at sheilaathens.com.