#WeWriteBooks, Post 27: Where to End the Book

I can’t believe we’ve finally reached the end.

This was a really long series! I hope you’ve enjoyed working through my writing process and that you also got a lot of work done on your books. The contest opens next week. Are you ready?

If you’ve finished a novel, even in rough draft form, congratulations! Of all the people out there writing novels, the percentage of those who actually finish is not all that large. Pat yourself on the back. You did it!

But if you’re not quite there yet, that’s okay. The ending is one of the most important parts of a story, and you want to get it just right. This is what you’ve been working towards. Your story has been building up to this very climax, after which you’ll tie things up in your resolution.

We’ve all read books that ended poorly, books that cheated us of a good ending, books we wanted to throw. And we’ve read boring endings too. It’s important to work really hard to write an ending that truly satisfies your readers. This requires you to make several decisions. Are you going to write a happy ending? Are you going to tie up your loose ends? Are you setting up a sequel? Do you seek to leave your reader pondering a theme or a question? Start by answering these questions, then seek ways to accomplish your goals.

Since most of you are writing genre fiction that fits a three-act structure with a somewhat happy ending, there are a few musts you’re going to need to do to satisfy your readers and not anger or annoy them.

1. The hero must act to save the day. It can’t be too easy. His friends can assist him, but it doesn’t work to have side characters save the day. The hero must step up and act. He must confront a worthy adversary and resolve the main story problem and conflict himself.

2. The hero must grow in some way. He cannot stay the same. He could learn an important lesson or overcome a fear. He could sacrifice something important or make a hard choice. No matter what, he needs to care about what’s happening, be invested in what’s happening, and change in a way that will make a big impact with readers.

3. You must work with what you’ve got. This isn’t the time to introduce new characters or plot threads. Anything you reveal in the end should have been set up, planted, or foreshadowed earlier in the story.

4. (For books in a series.) If you are writing a series, you still need to write an ending for this book. Every book needs some sort of resolution. Look for a story arc for this book that can be wrapped up nicely while still leaving a subplot or two unresolved that will hook your readers for a sequel. Don’t leave your readers frustrated or annoyed by what they think is a terrible ending. Make it clear that there are more books to come.

-Don’t break promises you made earlier in the story.

-Don’t leave the reader wondering why you planted something only to leave them hanging. If you foreshadowed something, follow through with a reveal.

-Don’t add drama for the sake of more drama. Events should feel natural to plot, character, and tone. Don’t ignore who your characters are. Stay true to them, and don’t allow them to act out of character to force your plot to work.

-Don’t rely on a flashback alone to end your story. Keep things active and engaging.

-Don’t use too much exposition at the end. I know. It’s tempting to let your bad guy monologue a little or let your hero give the big reveal like Shawn Spencer does on the show Psych, but too much explanation slows down the action in a book.

-Don’t cheat and suddenly have everything work out magically fine. Avoid the deux es machina where a seemingly unsolvable crisis is mysteriously resolved by the unexpected intervention of a character, a random magical ability, an object, or God himself. This is lazy writing and cheats the reader out of the ending they deserve.

-Don’t mess with genre conventions. Mysteries need to be solved in the end. The bad guy must be caught. Romances must end with a couple getting together. These particular genre conventions are nonnegotiable. Know what you can and can’t get away with in your particular genre.

-Do bring things full circle. Employ circularity (see this post on circularity).  Look for characters, plots, dialogue, or themes that were present at the start of your story and bring them back at the end. This gives a feeling of closure.

-Do tie up you lose threads. Maybe not every single one, but most of them. Trust me. You will get emails for the rest of your life if you leave too many things unresolved.

-Do recap what your character has learned. Don’t say it over and over, but have a moment in narrative or dialogue where your character gets introspective and contemplates how far he has come.

-Do stick to your characters and genre. Let those things ring true. If your book is a comedy, don’t have a dramatic, tear-jerker ending. If you’re writing epic fantasy, you’d better have an epic ending. Be consistent.

-Do surprise your reader. Realistically, deliberately. Intentionally and carefully. Watch for predictability and keep the reader guessing. Try to foreshadow more than one possible ending for your book to keep your readers on their toes.

-Do have a final, epic struggle that blows away your readers. Your ending should be the biggest, most exciting incident in your story. If you have a bigger incident in act two, that’s a problem. There is a reason this is called the climax. It should be the biggest.

-Do leave readers with a sense of wonder. Seek to give a powerful lasting impression. Grip them emotionally so that they’ll carry your story around in their thoughts for days.

-Do give your reader time to breathe after the big climax, but don’t go on too long. Every book is different. Some argue that I went on too long at the end of book three in the Blood of Kings trilogy, but I did it on purpose because Achan and Vrell didn’t get much time together in the last book. Really look at your story and carefully decide how much resolution is needed. Be intentional. Be smart.

-Do make your ending satisfying. It might not have to be perfectly happy, but it must satisfy your readers and give closure.

1) Plot Twist- You can surprise your readers with something they didn’t expect. Just do so carefully and realistically.

2) Give them the ending after the ending. Think of the biggest, most mind-blowing final conflict you can, then let your character fail and add yet another, even bigger ending.

3) Write an epilogue in which you show your hero at a later date. Stephanie wrote a great post on epilogues.

Remember the post a few weeks back about great beginningsand endings? The last page, the last paragraph, the last sentence, and the last word in your novel are all endings you want to perfect. Spend some time on them. Maybe cut the last sentence or paragraph. Play around with it until you have a powerful final page to your story. Stephanie wrote a great post on that too.