RePost: Ending Your Novel

 

How do you end your book? You want it to be perfect, but the ending just isn't coming to you.

 

I'll start with what I do because I never start a novel knowing how it's going to end. (What's the fun in that?)
I usually figure out how it's going to end somewhere past the halfway point. When I want to figure out my ending, I gather information:

 

• My characters' values and personalities
• How my characters interact with each other
• My characters' goals

 

Then I need to think about my story. I think about what has changed in the story. My characters have changed, their goals may have changed, the setting may have changed, and the rules of the world may have changed. (Like in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Umbridge changed the rules at Hogwarts, making Dumbledore's Army a pretty scary thing to the people in charge.)

 

The story (the beginning and the middle) has to matter. So what happened earlier in your book has to guide you to your ending. Otherwise, what's the point in telling the story?

 

Finally, taking all of this into consideration, I come up with every logical ending I can come up with, including:

• Good guys win, hands down
• Good guys win, but with great sacrifice (my personal favorite)
• The good guys win, but not what they were hoping for
• The bad guys win, but it's not as much of a victory as they'd hoped
• The bad guys win, but suffer great losses
• The bad guys win, hands down
• **And I always like to throw in: "The planet blows up, killing everyone." It makes me feel better knowing that's an option, even though I haven't used it. Yet.

 

Then I choose my favorite ending. The one that makes me smile, that ties up all lose ends, that is the most satisfying. If you don't have that happy, satisfied feeling about any of your endings, then I'd suggest you go back and look at your manuscript. Try to find all those little details that might push the story in one direction or another. It might be something you never intended to include.

I'm afraid that's the best advice I can offer from my experience, so I'll leave you with some links. Maybe someone else has a method that works better for you.

 

Story Logic: A basic how-to for story logic

 

Hitting the Writing Wall (and how to break through it)

 

The Rockpile Theory of Plotting (short, but interesting)

More Endings

My last post covered a few different types of endings, especially those juicy twist endings. But you can't just throw a twisty device in there because you like twists. It needs to fit with the rest of your story. Kim Davis had a workshop last year with two students who had this problem. You can read about it in her post: Troubles With Twist Endings.

So how do you know when to make your ending a twist? How do you find the end to your novel? I've taken some classes that discuss this at length. One good article you can find online: How to Write the End of a Novel by C. Patrick Schulze. He presents the basic types of endings as well as some tips for how to write the end of a novel. One of my favorites:

Ensure your ending delivers as much emotion as did the beginning and middle.

And something I'm trying to do in my work in progress:

Draw it naturally from your characters’ personalities.

Also in this article? The four unacceptable endings. I'm sure none of you have ever used one of these.

How Do You Like Your Endings: Loose? Twisty? Over Easy?

I'm about 2/3 of the way through my first draft, but I have no idea how my book is going to end at this point. I've been thinking a lot about plot twists, cause and effect, and how characters influence the outcome of a story. It's been a fun journey.

Anyway, I thought I'd do some digging on how to end a story, since all good stories must come to an end at some point. Just for fun, I looked up Twist Ending on Wikipedia. There's a list of goodies you can use in you writing including: flashback, unreliable narrator, Anagnorisis or discovery about a character (think Darth Vader when you discover he's Luke's father), irony, red herring, and cliff hanger.

How do you feel about ambiguous endings or a book where not all the loose ends are tied up? Personally, I think all the ends should be tied in pretty little knots one way or another. Either that, or I'd better be able to tell that the author deliberately left it untied and had a good reason to do so.

I know this could stir up some controversy, but Lost is an example of leaving loose ends that were not intentional. I could go on for days about how frustrating that show turned out to be, but the point is, the writers built up some mystery and left it unsolved. Think what you will about the last episode, but you have to admit: Walt's powers were never resolved and they should have been. The numbers had some supernatural power that was never explained. Claire's baby had some doomsday-bringing powers that could only be tamed if Claire raised him, then he was raised by Kate and nothing happened. Like I said, I could go on for days. But I won't. The point is: sometimes you can leave ends open. Just make sure you do it with purpose.

Jennifer R. Hubbard posted about Tying Up Loose Ends and I completely agree with her. She says:

As a reader, I look for a resolution, a sense of completeness, and yet also a sense of continuity. 

Holly Lisle talks about a story's "gravity". Basically, that all the elements of the story pull the characters to a surprising, yet logical point. Whether it's a "happy" ending or a "tragic" ending is up to the author. Usually. :) (Sometimes the gravity pulls too hard in one direction and the author has little choice. It has happened before.)

Ending Your Novel

Okay, I just lost my whole post. :( Let's try again....


How do you end your book? You want it to be perfect, but your ending just isn't coming to you.


I'll start with what I do because I never start a novel knowing how it's going to end. (What's the fun in that?) But I usually figure out how it's going to end somewhere past the halfway point. When I want to figure out my ending, I gather information:

My characters' values and personalities
How my characters interact with each other
My characters' goals

Then I need to think about my story. I think about what has changed in the story. My characters have changed, their goals may have changed, the setting may have changed, and the rules of the world may have changed. (Like in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Umbridge changed the rules at Hogwarts, making Dumbledore's Army a pretty scary thing to the people in charge.)

The story (the beginning and the middle) has to matter. So these changes--what happened earlier in your book--have to guide you to your ending. Otherwise, what's the point in telling the story? Without putting these changes into your ending, you might as well just give a list of bullet points, rather than bother telling a story.

Finally, taking all of this into consideration, I come up with every logical ending I can come up with, including:
Good guys win, hands down
Good guys win, but with great sacrifice (my personal favorite)
The good guys win, but not what they were hoping for
The bad guys win, but it's not as much of a victory as they'd hoped
The bad guys win, but suffer great losses
The bad guys win, hands down
**And I always like to throw in: "The planet blows up, killing everyone." It makes me feel better knowing that's an option, even though I haven't used it. Yet.

Then I choose my favorite ending. The one that makes me smile, that ties up all lose ends, that is the most satisfying. If you don't have that happy, satisfied feeling about any of your endings, then I'd suggest you go back and look at your manuscript. Try to find all those little details that might push the story in one direction or another. It might be something you never intended to include. (Holly Lisle calls this "leaving toys on the floor".)

I'm afraid that's the best advice I can offer from my experience, so I'll leave you with some links. Maybe someone else has a method that works better for you.






Story Logic: A basic how-to for story logic

Hitting the Writing Wall (and how to break through it)

The Rockpile Theory of Plotting (short, but interesting)