End of the Road

On February 18, 2017, Angie wrote, I recently completed my second manuscript, and am deep into the revision stage. Something I’ve struggled with in both of my novels is writing a final, satisfactory ending. Once my characters’ stories are resolved and every plot point is checked off, I have serious trouble working up an appropriate send-off. I’m just done. I’ve received feedback that the ending in my current manuscript feels abrupt, and am struggling to rectify that problem in subsequent drafts. I’d love some help working through this end-of-the-road roadblock!

First off, congratulations on finishing not one but two manuscripts!

When I was taking writing classes and in the learning stages of becoming a kids’ book writer, the advice I heard most often from teachers about endings was, When you’re done, get out. So it’s possible that the criticism Angie received was just one person’s opinion and the ending is fine.

But let’s assume, for the sake of having a post, that the critiquer is right. What to do?

If every plot point has been checked off, have they all become equal? If yes, that evenness may give our ending a flat feeling. To break it up, we can think about which conflict is at the heart of our story. Fundamentally, what’s our story about? That conflict, the one the story turns on, should stand out in our ending, and we can look for ways to amplify it, perhaps make it come last.

Along the same lines, have we made our plot points’ success–or failure–hard won enough? If the solutions are too easy, the ending again, can feel flat or abrupt. In revision, we can go in and beef up our MC’s struggle. We can give our villains or our opposing forces more power, a few more weapons in their arsenal.

An ending doesn’t have to be unpredictable. As I’ve said here many times, when we’re working from a popular story, a fairy tale or a myth, the end is known. And even if we’re not, most stories follow arcs that readers are used to. The interest lies in how we get to the end of the rainbow. We can surprise the reader and make the ending more satisfying by throwing in lots of monkey wrenches–twists that aren’t predictable–along the way.
We can think about what feeling we want the reader to be left with. In a tragedy, for example, we want hankies to come out. Have we made our readers care enough about our MC to weep for her? Have we shown why her losses are devastating? (If I know someone has to die in a story, I usually make that character–like Ella’s mother, like Dave’s father in Dave at Night–super lovable.)

In an adventure story, we probably want a feeling of satisfaction. Our heroine has accomplished what she set out to do, with great difficulty, probably at some cost, and she’s grown along the way. We have to make sure those things have happened.

In a happy love story, we want rejoicing. Our MCs have been foolish; they’ve made mistakes; they’ve misunderstood themselves and each other. But finally, the blinders have come off their eyes. They’re together at last. We have to deliver on all the mishaps along the way to make the ending feel earned.

What else makes a satisfying ending?

My mind travels to the TV mystery series Bones (high school, possibly middle school, though I’m not sure). The series, which wrapped up recently, was episodic, meaning that, mostly, each mystery got solved in the episode in which it was introduced. In later seasons, when the mystery was solved and the murderer dealt with, the final scene almost always took place in the home of Temperance Brennan (Bones) and her husband, Seeley Booth. Chit-chat happens; often a minor spat between Brennan and Booth is charmingly resolved. The audience feels settled.

We can do something similar. After the blood has been mopped up and the main conflict resolved, we can end with a smaller scene that gives the reader time to collect himself. If we like we can use an epilogue, as I’ve done more than once, to hint at the uneventful futures of our characters.
I’d call that an order-is-restored ending. Shakespeare used this kind of ending in his tragedies, as I was taught in high school. The problem of a play, like Hamlet, is so grave that the balance of the universe is disturbed. Storms result. A ghost walks the earth. Madness afflicts Ophelia. But at the end, following the death of Queen Gertrude and King Claudius, the stage littered with bodies, good governance can resume, and all will be well.

There’s also the circular story, which I devoted a post to years ago. The circular story ends where it began, and that return provides the sense of completeness. Lord of the Ring and The Wizard of Oz are examples of stories that begin and end in the same location.

Not every book ends neatly. Take Gone With the Wind–or my understanding of it. Rhett Butler says his famous line and decamps. He understands himself better than he had before, and we readers understand Scarlet, but she doesn’t understand herself, which we realize is her fate. We know that her future life will be full of events and turmoil, whatever they may be. (I haven’t read the sequel, so I don’t know what the modern writer has dished out for her.) Still, despite the lingering possibilities, Margaret Mitchell’s ending works, I think because of the way the characters become resolved.
And there’s “The Lady and the Tiger,” which I’ve talked about before here and which is a short story rather than a novel. Look it up if you don’t know it, because it ends with a question mark, and the reader has to decide what happens. I’m not sure if this would be satisfying in a novel, but it’s great in this particular short story. The story raises a big question and then asks the reader for an answer, and the answer is more revelatory of the reader’s character than of anyone in the story itself.

Here are three prompts:

∙ Rewrite the unsatisfying ending of a book that frustrated you. Make it work!

∙ This is an old and silly joke that I may have told before here: A congregation’s rabbi is dying. His most important congregants gather around his deathbed to hear his final words of wisdom, which are “The world is a barrel.” His listeners are shocked. What are they to make of this? They beg him to explain. He lifts his veined eyelids. His watery eyes go from face to face. His chest heaves. His wheezes sound painful. Finally, he gasps out, “So it isn’t a barrel”–and dies.

Make the barrel world be true for at least the youngest person around the bed. Write an adventure in this barrel world and bring it to a satisfying ending, which can be the same or different from the ending in the joke.

∙ Pick a moment in history–an assassination, the fall of Rome, an election, the purchase of Manhattan from its original inhabitants, whatever. Go into it in detail, peopling it with real or imagined characters. Ignore the historical outcome and follow the characters to an ending that flows from their conflicting wishes.

Have fun, and save what you write!

39 Responses on “End of the Road”

  1. Angie says:

    What a great response to my question! I appreciate the thorough examples of different types of endings, and the question of whether or not the successes are hard-won enough has given me a lot to chew on. Thank you!!

  3. Dezzy says:

    I always plan out my whole story except the ending and say to myself “I’ll start writing and make up the ending later.” Because the ending is always so hard, but this post really helped and I doubt I’ll ever start writing an unfinished story again.

  4. Song4myKing says:

    Your mention of the story that ends with a question mark reminded me of my sister’s stories. She does not write now, but did write a handful of stories when she was in her teens. She had a thing for unconventional endings. Two stick out in my memory. One is of an encounter with a mad bull in the middle of a field, and ends with a matter-of-fact “Yes-sir-ee, I just plain died.” She set the other in an abandoned house in a woods near us. The story tells of hearing a strange thumping noise upstairs, imagining what weird or awful things it might be, creeping up the stairs, listening at the door, hand on the door knob. The tension and suspense builds up, all the way to the end: “Shall I go in? Shall I not? I haven’t decided yet.”

  5. April says:

    Great question, Angie!

    I used to struggle with endings too, although instead of being too abrupt I’d let it go on too long. The tail end of the story curve called “resolution” can be tricky, can’t it? I was able to get a better grasp of when the proper end of my story was when I heard the following advice.

    Once the climax is reached and the crisis is over, finish your story with an “everything is fine” scene. (I think this fits with the “When you’re done, get out” advice.)

    For me, that meant ONE scene to wrap it up so it doesn’t drag on. For you, maybe you’re missing it altogether. When I’m reading, I want to have a moment to see loose ends tied up, the chance to breathe easier without suspense, to see the hero rewarded, and to witness the couple happily together. That way I can close the book with a sigh instead of throwing it against the wall. 😉

    • Angie says:

      Thanks, April, I agree. That last scene (“everything is fine”) feels so necessary to me as a reader, but was surprisingly hard to conjure as the writer! But this discussion has been very helpful! It’s allowed me to take a step back and evaluate just why it’s been difficult, and what my story needs to end on a satisfactory note.

  9. Tabi says:

    does anyone have any ideas on how to write a battle? In the story I’m working on there is going to be a very large very crazy battle at the end but I have no idea how to write anything like that

    • Samantha says:

      I would suggest reading battle scenes in books. The Hobbit has a bit of a battle in the end. Go back and look at battles that you have read about in books.

  10. Dezzy says:

    Fight scene tips
    1. Intensifying the pace of your writing can communicate the immediacy and suddenness of conflict. Short, simple sentences keep the reader on their toes. Fights happen quickly and your description needs to match that.
    2.It’s difficult to communicate excitement when you describe something objectively. Hovering around the fight describing the actions of both characters sets a limitation on how gripping the experience can be. The key is to thrust the reader into the thick of the action, and to do that they need to experience the fight through a character.
    3.Fight scenes demand brevity and adverbs are the opposite. Instead of ‘Adam hit him hard in the chest, again and again’ use ‘Adam pounded at his chest’.The occasional adverb might have its place, but you want the punch of the sentence to come with the character’s action, not lagging after it.
    4.The key to getting a fight scene right is learning that detail is a dirty word. Television and movies have taught us that the choreography of a fight is the important thing, but different mediums call for different tricks.Write around the physical actions, set the mood and write the sounds, smells, tastes and feel of combat, and your reader will tap into the visual heritage that was formerly working against you to picture their own kick-ass fight scenes.

  11. Samantha says:

    I have a bit of a problem…every time I try to write a scene where my characters are uncomfortable or confused, I find that I keep reusing the same words. This happens in other scenes as well, but not as much. I’m not sure what to do about it or how I could learn more words to use in these scenes. This happens most to me when I’m writing in first POV. Do any of you have tips on how I could widen my field of vocabulary?

    • Inktail says:

      Whoops. XD I didn’t mean to hit enter!
      Anywhos, I’m writing to ask a question. I am writing a manuscript at the moment where I have two female protagonists. One becomes corrupt, and the other must fight her. I haven’t figured out how she becomes corrupt yet though. Any tips on how to write this cleanly without cliques? Thank you for the help! 🙂

  13. Angie says:

    I want to say thank you again for all the amazing advice offered here, in the blog posts as well as the comments! I’ve learned so much that has helped my writing. This writing community is truly amazing! I recently had a short story published in an online fairy tale magazine called Enchanted Conversation. The link is in the blog post you can get to through my profile, if anyone is interested in reading it. It is a spin on the Grimm’s tale “Cat-Skin.” I think my writing has come a long way since discovering Gail’s books and blog, and I’m so thankful!!

  14. Poppie says:

    Hello! I have a question about romance. My MC Lio and his love interest Arellie have pretty similar personalities, the biggest similarity is that they’re both insecure in their environment (Arellie with other fairies, Lio with everything that might be dangerous). The biggest difference is that Arellie loves animals and connects with them in a way that many fairies don’t, whereas Lio is very nervous around them.
    Should I keep the love interest’s personality the same, or should I stick to the “opposites attract” rule?

    • Inktail says:

      I agree with Bookfanatic101–I say leave the differences about the animals. Maybe that could be one of Lio’s struggles in the relationship that Arielle helps him fix.

      Just throwing out ideas 😉

  15. Bookfanatic102 says:

    Does anyone have any ideas that will help me with the beginning of my story? My MC went to live with the fairies when she was six but i’m not sure how to write the transition from living with her aunt to living with the fairies.

    • Gail Carson Levine says:

      There’s a great book, THE MOORCHILD by Eloise McGraw, in which the process goes the other way, from living with elves to living with humans. You may find it helpful–and it’s a terrific read! And I’ve added your question to my list.

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