Something About The End

What’s the difference between a lackluster ending and a spectacular one? Your effort and writing are wasted if the end is unfulfilling. Here’s my guide to writing a great ending!

Everyone wants to tell a satisfying story that leaves their readers fulfilled and excited to trust them with their time again for the sequel! What’s the difference between a lackluster ending and a spectacular one? There’s something about the end of a novel that outweighs the beginning and middle by a mile. When was the last time you read a great book with a terrible ending? The vast truth is that an awful end sours the entire book. Your effort and writing are wasted if the end is unfulfilling, and as an author, it’s your duty to guide your readers to a satisfying conclusion that rewards their investment in your story!

Writing a Great Ending

Endings are inevitable yet surprising conclusions. You’ve had your entire novel to pay off your set-ups, reveal your secrets, and expose the reader to the machinations behind your antagonist’s grand plans. Here are a few ways to figure out if your ending is truly earned:

• Your protagonist’s key weaknesses play a role in their ultimate success after self-reflection reveals a core truth.
• The state of the world after the climax’s resolution directly results from the clash between the protagonist and antagonist forces.
• There are no new concepts or ideas introduced near the end of your novel that conveniently help wrap up the ending.
• By the end, all of the central questions from the start of your novel have been purposefully answered.

Let Your Readers Fill In The Gaps

Answer the primary loose ends your readers hope to tie up, but make space for their imaginations to fill in a few minor gaps. No end will satisfy every reader, but whenever a reader can draw their own conclusions, they’re more likely to feel connected to the resolution of the ending.

So make sure there’s space for your readers to plug a little piece of themselves into your novel’s end chapters! Try to focus on tangential details and story beats like, for instance, the state of a city or village or a large group of townsfolk affected by the events of your story. Describe one or two, and let it be known that there are many more.

That way, you’ve offered space for your reader to personalize an aspect of the resolution without majorly neutering your core ending beats! Sometimes it’s helpful to have the main characters pass through and see the consequences or fallout for themselves.

This method gives you a first-hand opportunity to describe what they see and even offer a more direct question about what the rest of the population might be doing straight from your protagonist!

If your main character is asking that question to themselves, they are indirectly asking the reader to consider what the answer might be and encouraging them to imagine their answers. That’s a great way to include your reader in your novel’s final wrap-up!

Spotlight The Growth (Or Failure) Of Your Protagonist

Depending on the nature of your story, your protagonist will rise and overcome several personal obstacles to become better than they began, or they will expressly fail to do so, and their world will feel the consequences. Whether your protagonist’s heroic or tragic, you need to hammer home the final result of their arc.

Did they succeed? Make sure it’s a satisfying success! Did they struggle to earn their growth? What did they give up to succeed? What are the consequences of their failure? Do we get to see the ramifications of their loss? Do readers get to feel your protagonist sit in the consequences of their actions?

If you don’t show your audience in no uncertain terms how your protagonist has changed (or failed to change) by the end of your novel, then they haven’t interacted with your story enough to be your true main character, in my opinion.

We are following their exploits for a reason. So then it’s the expectation of the reader that they will experience the challenges and hardships and victories and failures of the main character. Your protagonist must face their shortcomings repeatedly until they discover new realizations about themselves that will ultimately help determine the resolution of their story!

If your main character drifts through your story without learning anything, they are either perfect, unnecessary, or boring!

Avoid Obvious Tropes and Cliches

There have been enough novels written now that several conventions have become typical and expected by even the most casual readers. Avoid these most common tropes when cultivating your ending:

• No “Deus-Ex-Machina” solutions to the major event
• Don’t let the climax resolve without the protagonist’s input
• Don’t let your antagonist lose without colossal failure
• Don’t let your protagonist win without working hard for it

Some fantastic online resources have cataloged the most common or egregious tropes in modern media, such as https://tvtropes.org/.

TvTropes is outstanding for staying aware of audience expectations or even setting up the concept of a trope precisely so that you can subvert it later in your novel to the surprise and delight of your audience!

It’s essential to be aware of the conventions of your genre and medium when writing a great ending to your story to create something unique and unexpected for your avid readers! Think about which tropes most likely apply to your particular story, and make a list of the different ways you subvert expectations by defying those signature tropes!

Let’s be honest: endings are brutal. As authors, we want to satisfy everyone, and it’s not an easy endeavor to tie all of your best-laid plans together in a nice, neat bow in the final chapter. But I believe in you!

If you want a more in-depth look at writing a great ending to your next novel, check out my course, where I give more detail and provide examples with other resources. If you want to get in touch about anything, you know where to find me on social media or at jsims@jairesims.com.