{"id":1718,"date":"2022-08-10T08:45:37","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T12:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/?p=1718"},"modified":"2022-08-10T08:45:37","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T12:45:37","slug":"the-end-of-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/10\/the-end-of-the-road\/","title":{"rendered":"The End of the Road"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On September 17, 2021, Christie V Powell wrote, Does anyone else struggle with writing the very end of a story? I\u2019m fine if it\u2019s a series and there are more books coming, but if I\u2019m writing the end of a standalone or the end of a series, I have a really hard time focusing on the last chapter or so (the tail end of the climax and the resolution stuff). My brain has already written off this story as done and wants to move on to something new and interesting. I struggled on this with my standalone Mira\u2019s Griffin, and some reviewers picked up on it. Now I\u2019m facing the same problem with the end of my DreamRovers series. Any tips for staying focused on the story through the end?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wrote this at the time: Here\u2019s a thought: Your story is over for you, but it will still be clinging to your readers. What do you think they\u2019ll want that will make them sigh with contentment?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every book I write is Mount Everest. I want to scale it: figure it out, write it, revise in ecstasy, and depart to scout out my next mountain. I always want the current one to be DONE! For some reason, Ella Enchanted <\/em>was the worst. So I\u2019m with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I remember right, Brandon Sanderson said that the problem of wanting to move on is worst in outliners. I\u2019m only fractionally an outliner, but I still feel it. There may not be a solution; we may just have to endure. That said, I have some thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just reread the final chapter of one of my childhood favorites, Anne of Green Gables<\/em>. **Spoilers alert! Spoilers in italics. (If you\u2019ve never read Anne, it\u2019s a marvelous classic for kids.)** The beginning of the chapter, when Anne and the reader learn that Marilla (Anne\u2019s adoptive mother) is in danger of losing her eyesight, and then Anne\u2019s decision in response to the news had me crying–today, at age seventy-four. Not much further on, though, I perked up as romance rears its pretty head, and, shortly thereafter, the books ends. <\/em>End of spoiler. As a child reader, I remembered the sadness, but I was delighted by the promise of love to come and that’s what stayed with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also refreshed my memory of the ending of my other favorite, Peter Pan<\/em>, but I didn\u2019t reread it because I disliked it when I was little, and I still do. Ending aside, if you\u2019ve never read Peter Pan<\/em>, I recommend it highly\u2014another kid-lit classic. **Spoilers alert!**\u00a0 I think the novel ends tragically. If you\u2019ve read it and remember, do you agree? Adults are set up in Peter Pan as dull and stodgy, utterly unlike their much livelier childhood selves, and yet Wendy, her brothers, and the Lost Boys choose that fate. Peter doesn\u2019t, but he winds up tragically isolated, which he covers with bravado.<\/em> Lover of romance that I am and was, I was angry with Barrie for ruining the ending of an almost perfect book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we\u2019re writing to tell ourselves a story, we can ask ourselves what we want in the ending. What will satisfy us or the child reader who still lives inside us? Then the question becomes how we can provide it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we know who reads our stories, we can consider what will please them. What do they come to us for? Aside from our MC, which character interests them most? Can we fold that character into our ending? Will they want an epilogue to wrap everything up?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What will be fun for us to write? In Sparrows in the Wind<\/em> (coming out in October), I threw something I didn\u2019t need into the ending because I wanted it for my MC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most important, naturally, is that the ending solves the problem of the book, one way or another. As I see it, in a character-driven book, like Anne of Green Gables<\/em>, which is a coming-of-age story, the problem belongs to the MC, in this case to Anne\u2019s becoming a secure, well-rounded person. In a character-driven tragedy, like Hamlet<\/em>, the problem is a character flaw, and the eponymous hero fails to solve it. In a plot-driven adventure, like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the problem is the salvation of Middle Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the seeds of the ending are sown into the beginning, the problem that\u2019s the reason for the story. The ending has to speak to that problem. I\u2019m sure Christie V Powell\u2019s stories do, but if our stories don\u2019t, the ending will be hard to write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think this is the reason that the ending of Peter Pan<\/em> fails, that it\u2019s a book (I love) without a clear problem. There are problems. The Darlings, Wendy\u2019s and her brothers\u2019 parents, are heartbroken about the disappearance of their children (though they don\u2019t try to find them). Captain Hook has a crocodile on his trail. But these problems aren\u2019t the book\u2019s problem. That Peter isn\u2019t seriously connected to anyone might be the problem if he saw it that way. For most of the story, Wendy and her brothers are having a fine time and aren\u2019t thinking about going home. Wendy plays at being an adult, and that pleases her. Near the end, Peter, in anger, frightens her into believing her parents have forgotten her and then there\u2019s suspense about their getting away. But they do, and the Darlings are delighted to see them, and they grow into ordinary, boring adults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, these are ideas to consider when we write our endings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n