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Writing Tips:
A Good Ending
It goes without saying that a good ending leaves the reader wanting more. That is your overarching goal. The wonderful thing about endings is the range of options you have. You can kill a character off, tell the reader what happens in the rest of the characters’ lives, have a character reflect on their journey, end with a dialogue between two characters- the variations are endless. Your ending should not be too abrupt nor should the reader be waiting for it to come! |
Randa Abdel-Fattah offers
tips on: A Good Ending
… leaves the reader wanting more. You can either tie things up neatly, have a surprise in store, or simply find a convenient resting place to put your story down. You might want to refer to the beginning of the story, which can give a good sense of completion. |
Depending on what kind of story it is, it can be happy, or sad, or mysterious - but try not to let the story 'tail off.' If you're bored with it by now, the reader certainly will be. Try and save a few surprises for the last few pages. |
A good ending is not necessarily a happy ending but it should resolve the main theme of the book and be a satisfying conclusion. Otherwise, the reader feels cheated. And for me a good ending is one that invokes an emotional response which stays with me when the book has been closed. |
It needs to bring the story to a believable conclusion. You want an ending that feels inevitable to the reader, yet one that the reader somehow didn't see coming – pretty difficult to achieve but worth striving for! |
For me, I like to tie up the loose ends and offer the possibility of a happy ending, but also to leave something to the reader’s imagination. For example, I might hint that two characters will get together, but not spell it out. I like the endings to be gentle and reflective rather than dramatic and action-packed. |
When you end a story it doesn't have to be neat. It can be uneven. You can leave the reader wanting to know more. |
You must never cheat the reader out of a good ending! They'll want to see all the loose ends of the plot tied up. That doesn't mean it has to be a 'happy' ending either. Sometimes more downbeat endings can be very powerful. |
The nearer I get to the end of a story, the more possibilities there are about how it should end. This is strange, because I never start to write a book until I think I know how it's going to finish! Sometimes the characters themselves decide - they take you to the only ending that's right for them. I think you should listen to your characters. A short story often has a surprise ending, or sometimes an open ending that leaves the reader wondering, letting the story stay with them for a long time after they've finished reading it. A good ending should leave the reader satisfied and pleased with the outcome, even if it's not what they expected. But a bad ending is the sort that goes 'And then I woke up' or 'And then I died'. That leaves the reader thinking that they've wasted their time getting involved in the story in the first place. |
Whatever works. But don’t forget people or things you began with. If Mrs.Golightly figured a lot in chapter one, we need to know what happened to her. And to that dog who proved so useful in chapter four. Read through and make sure they’re all sorted. The less important characters first, ending with the principal characters. |
The ending is as important to a story as the beginning. Obviously, never go home for your tea or tell the reader it was all a dream! Decide if it a closed ending (all loose ends tied up) or an open ending (leaving it up to the reader to imagine). Plan for your ending earlier in the story. Look at the film Jaws. The ending in which the gas cylinder blows up only works because it has already rolled round the deck earlier. No tricks! |
Is a twist ending. Try and confound expectations – your end should put your main characters in the opposite position to where they were at the beginning. |
For me the best ending is the only ending that was possible. There’s a sense of inevitability. |
This is another tricky thing I don't always get right. I often think that I have and then later when I go back and look at it I realise the ending's a bit lame, a bit flat, which is disappointing for the reader. |
This is one of the toughest things to give advice on, because the good ending will only be suggested by all you have written before it. What is easier to say is what NOT to do to your ending. Do not give in to pressure to make your ending something it isn’t. Not all stories have happy endings. Some of them have ugly ones. Your story needs the ending that is true to it, and nothing else. There might be a more commercial ending than the one you know is right. There might be a better message ending than the one you know is right. There may be more hope, or more shock, or more mystery, or more laughs in an ending other than the one you know is right.. But you have to go with the ending you know is right for your story or your story becomes a big fat lie. Readers can smell a rat pretty clearly, and funnily enough they don’t like it.. |
Read your favourite books, what made the endings so good? |
The end of the story must climax. The risk to the characters must be at its greatest, and they must look as if they are on the brink of losing what is most important to them. Whether they do or not is up to whether you're a fan of happy endings. Most readers are. Quite often, I find a bitter-sweet ending is best; the characters can win out, but not without a cost to them. The best endings should leave the characters changed in some way. Don't climax too early, and don't drag an ending out for too long. You want to leave the reader on a high, not bore them right at the end of the story after all your hard work getting them there. |
Come up with a good ending after you have thought of the start. I’m not joking. Most people have trouble finishing stories! If you can come up with a good ending you are more likely to. |
...has the sense of an ending about it. It's a satisfying resolution. It doesn't have to be entirely clear cut though. It can leave you wondering a bit. You could use it to make a reference to the title of your story or link the end of your story with the beginning... Just don't trail off because you've lost interest... |
Tie up all the loose ends. Make sure everything fits in. Try and be original - make it give the reader pause for thought. Good endings are hard to write - give them as much thinking time as the beginning. For 'Rani and Sukh' I wrote most of my ending first! |
A good ending should provide a satisfactory conclusion to the events described, but it should also imply that life will continue. In this way, you keep the illusion that your characters are real people, and what Happened, really did happen. What you are saying is: ‘That is the end of this story, but others followed.’. Real life, after all, is episodic. No-one believes ‘Happy ever after’, except in fairy stories. |
The climax to the story is vital; if you can think of a neat twist, then all the better. Whatever you do, try not to make the ending predictable. |
I like cliff-hangers but only if I know there is another book to follow which concludes the story otherwise they can be quite frustrating. A good ending should try and give the reader what they want, either a happy ending or a shocking ending or even better a big unexpected twist or turn that will leave them thinking about your story long after they have finished it. |
Again, there are no rules. I always think it's good when a book leaves me wondering what's going to happen to the characters now that the story is over. It's a good idea if you know your ending before you start (even if you find yourself changing it later). That way it's easier to write logically towards it, or to mislead the reader deliberately on the way there. |
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