Ending your book

[JosiAtara]

My biggest struggle is coming up with an ending. For any book I've ever written. (Obviously, I haven't published anything yet.)
Nothing ends, it just goes on forever because everything seems cheesy, or I don't want to say goodbye to my characters.

Does anyone have any favorite story maps or ending brainstorm lists they use to come up with endings? Or any other sort of advice they like to give when determining an ending?
I have a vague idea of what I want to happen with the ending--like, the protag has a hand in it somehow, she's not just passive in this situation, certain people are brought to justice, etc. I'm probably struggling more with moving from the middle to the ending, and I want to put more thought into mapping this story a bit before I attempt another draft. (I had decided to write the characters and the main situations I knew I wanted, and see where they went, or what ideas I could come up with as I wrote, but now I realize I need a few specifics to be able to stick to.)

 

[Claire Tucker]

Do you have a solid grasp of what your theme is? And what is the main conflict?

Generally, those two questions can help you end off the story. Knowing what the theme is gives you the emotional material the climax revolves around. Having a good idea of the main conflict will also help you identify what to do with the climax.

The climax should resolve the main conflict that has been explored through the rest of the book. This is the point the main character comes face-to-face with what they've been working toward all along. It's Luke Skywalker refusing to kill Darth Vader (the battle between Sith and Jedi is the main conflict through the trilogy; the climax reveals this by placing Luke in a position where he could justifiably kill Vader). It's Aslan returning and killing the White Witch (this battle between good and evil characterizes the entire story and is resolved in those moments). It's the one ring finally being destroyed in Mount Doom.

Theme generally plays an important role in the climax. The Hobbit seems to be a story of dwarves attempting to reclaim their mountain and wealth. If that were the case, then the story should have ended with Smaug's defeat. Rather, we see the theme of treasure not being more important than friends played out as Thorin succumbs to the same madness his grandfather had and ignores the needs of those who had helped them. This leads to the battle of five armies and, interestingly, is a similar theme that Bilbo struggles with later.

I think if you can nail down those two questions about your theme and the main conflict, you'll be in a good place to start exploring how that might play out in the climax. Once that's written, you can go back and look for any loose ends that need to be resolved.

A resource I recommend for this is K. M. Weiland's book Structuring Your Novel. You can also read articles on story structure from her blog, https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/. From there, I suggest checking out her story structure database, where she dissects the story structure of movies and explains how and why they did or didn't work. Seeing structure in action will help you understand how you can plan the climax and nail the ending.

 

[KR LaLonde]

Today, I am actually going to try and write the end. That will give me a fixed point to reach. Does that make sense?

 

[Zee]

Often, it’s the visualization of that final, or almost final scene that provides me with the inspiration to write a story in the first place. Rather than beginning at A and trying to figure out how to get to Z from there, I work backwards—this is where we are. How did we get here?

Even if you don’t know exactly how you want to end, I imagine you have at least an idea of what you want to accomplish in your ending.

I suspect the real problem is that the middle section of your story is not leading you to the ending you want. If you consider some redirection there, your perfect ending might just click into place.

 

[Johne]

Or any other sort of advice they like to give when determining an ending?

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We can know what the climax is if we know the elements that lead to that event.

The climax of a UNIT OF STORY is when the protagonist decides and acts on the binary question raised by the CRISIS. The climax also fulfills the promise of the INCITING INCIDENT. We see the true character of the AVATARS only in the choices they make under pressure.

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Figuring out your genre up front can do a lot of the work of uncovering your climax. In a Crime story, it's about injustice vs. justice. In a Thriller, will the protagonist weather the direct threat of the antagonist and survive the 'threat of damnation.' In Love, it's 'Love triumphs when lovers overcome moral failings or sacrifice their needs for one another. Love fails when the lovers don’t evolve beyond desire.' Knowing your genre unlocks your conventions and obligatory scenes, and can help you determine your climax early on.



From there, it's helpful to figure out each of the five main events of your story so you have a coherent climax and you know it's coming long before you get there. The Crisis question is usually a Best Bad Choice and directly leads to the climax. Indiana Jones gives up his quest for the chalice and finally receives the love from his distant father. Neo lets go of his identity as a human and becomes The One. Elizabeth Bennet learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness.

In CASABLANCA, will Rick Blaine double-down on his desire for Ilsa, or will he help her and Victor Laszlo escape the Gestapo's clutches as a leader of the Resistance in WWII (and transform, 'get back into the game' himself). As much as you might love writing about life in Morocco, you've always had this climactic scene in mind for this story–Rick has to make a choice between being selfish and transforming, becoming selfless. And so when we get to that final scene and he says 'Here's looking at you, kid,' he's saying goodbye, he's matured. He's given up his Want and accepted his Need.

That's how you know. The climax isn't an arbitrary event, it's the 'surprising but expected' moment that has to happen to confirm the long logistical chain of events that inevitably lands you where you've been leading up to as dictated by your genre.

For example, I think CASABLANCA works so well because people saw the chemistry between the leads and thought, incorrectly, that this was a Romance, when it was actually a Worldview story where the key climax wasn't that the guy got the girl, it was Rick's transformation from ignorance to wisdom, from selfish to selfless, from bitter to genial. The final convention of the Worldview story works brilliantly here: "Paradoxical win-but-lose or lose-but-win bittersweet ending." CASABLANCA is the poster child for that kind of ending when Rick gave up his selfish dreams of stealing the love of his rival and finally found his purpose and life by accepting a greater love than what they'd had in Paris. (Jesus said 'Greater love has no man than he lay down his life for his friends.') In the Climax for CASABLANCA, Rick finally learned what it meant to sacrifice himself for a great cause, and that was always going to be the climax to this particular story.

So, figure out the genre for your story, then work through the five core scenes of your story. Pay special attention to your genre's conventions and obligatory scenes. All of that will go a LONG way toward suggesting your Climax so you'll have that in mind throughout your story, and will know without a doubt when you finally get there because you've been setting up that climax from the very beginning.

 

[Shamrock]

I have found using some plotting strategy helpful, i.e Save the Cat - Story Grid.

I generally know the endings to the story I am writing. I often use the image of a W - you start with the high leading to the inciting incident, which propels the story to it first major hiccup (bottom bit of the first V). The protagonist overcomes it to achieve another high point only to dash down to the next low point and then you are in the final struggle. It is a form of the 3-act arch.

But Claire is spot on - work out your themes and the conflict - what are the stake if the protagonist fails/wins?

 

[Accord64]

Or any other sort of advice they like to give when determining an ending?

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I tend to keep my process simple. I try to come up with the ending first so I know where to steer the story. Sometimes in the midst of writing I might change my mind about the ending, and that's okay.

I think of it like planning a trip. Know the destination before planning the route.

 

[JosiAtara]

Thanks, everyone. I'll look into those ideas that were mentioned and see if any work for me. I think I'm a bit abstract and have ideas of what the theme and conflict and all that are, without being able to concretely say for sure, "THIS is it."

Going through a scriptwriting class, I realized that nailing down one major flaw the character has to overcome is the best way for me to determine the ending and make decisions easily (my script is also a WAAAAAY simpler story than this novel I'm working on though, so that helps). I'm trying to apply that to my novel a little bit, but there's still a lot more options of how I can go about things in a novel vs script. The Save the Cat beat sheet was actually mentioned in our class last night, but looked way too daunting for me still trying to make decisions (at least, for my movie). I might be able to apply that to my novel though, since I have more of that planned out already.

 

[carolinamtne]

I spent a long time considering two opposing endings to a book I was writing. Did I kill the guy off (just to show, I think, that jerks can't change) or did I redeem him (an old dog can learn new tricks)? I redeemed him, but open to falling back into old habits. I may have to write a sequel, but not now. I have too many other irons in the fire.

In the end (no pun intended), we are Christians in this group, and we believe in redemption.

 

[Shamrock]

I had a similar dilemma with one of my 'baddies'. Instead of redeeming, I killed him off but I beforehand gave insight to the reader to see how he had become bad.

 

[Zee]

For example, I think CASABLANCA works so well because people saw the chemistry between the leads and thought, incorrectly, that this was a Romance, when it was actually a Worldview story where the key climax wasn't that the guy got the girl, it was Rick's transformation from ignorance to wisdom, from selfish to selfless, from bitter to genial.

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Which is what makes it such a great film...if it had been a romance, it would have been lame and quickly forgotten.

 

[Johne]

In my writer's cohort meeting this afternoon a friend noted that Rick Blaine's reluctance to get involved was a metaphor for the reluctance of the US to get involved in WWII. I note that CASABLANCA was released in 1942, still early enough that this was a powerful message for young Americans to still get involved with the war effort.

 

[Jeff Potts]

Does anyone have any favorite story maps or ending brainstorm lists they use to come up with endings?

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No.

Or any other sort of advice they like to give when determining an ending?

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My advice is pretty basic: if the ending doesn't feel right, or if you're bending something to fit the ending you want, then you need to go back and rethink your ending.

I think I rewrote the ending to THE WIZARD'S STONE three times before I was happy with it. In the end, the resolution fit the character's personality, the mission, the message, and fate I predestined for the character. I also had to properly move him down the appropriate emotional path he needed to take in order to get to this conclusion.

And when the ending didn't fit, I knew it didn't fit. So, it got rewritten until my gut told me otherwise.

 

[paulchernoch]

If you have difficulty writing the ending, perhaps you need to rethink your story's beginning? I rewrote the beginnings of some of my novels several times. Trying to nail down the inciting incident, start the story neither to early nor too late, is hard. Many time the best ending mirrors some feature of the beginning. The right beginning will suggest the right ending.

 

[drender69]

Today, I am actually going to try and write the end. That will give me a fixed point to reach. Does that make sense?

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Did you succeed? Maybe send us just the ending, with the scope of the book. get some feedback?

 

[Darrel Bird]

I've been accused of hurried endings myself so I got no answer to the question. When I get to the end it's like someone stuck a pin in me and I'm done'er than a Christmas turkey.

 

[Shamrock]

My advice is pretty basic: if the ending doesn't feel right, or if you're bending something to fit the ending you want, then you need to go back and rethink your ending.

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That is good advice @Jeff Potts.

I sometimes find that my planned ending is an earlier scene or too far beyond. In one novel, I ended up scrapping the original ending and stopping a few scenes earlier on the advice of one of the beta readers here.

You want to leave your reader satisfied the story has concluded or if it is a series, you are writing - that novel's story has concluded - until the next book. Never leave a hook at your ending.

 

[KR LaLonde]

Did you succeed? Maybe send us just the ending, with the scope of the book. get some feedback?

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I did not, sadly. And I realized just last week why I've had so much trouble writing the middle of the book: Because nothing can really happen. Not when you're in the "wilderness".

 

[Johne]

And I realized just last week why I've had so much trouble writing the middle of the book: Because nothing can really happen.

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Steven Pressfield says 'The middle belongs to the villain.' (This is why I hated the latest Spider-Man movie, btw - five of the Sinister Six were all palling around with Peter like they were all friends. That might make for good friendships but I found it made for really dull storytelling.) In my favorite stories, the villain uses the Middle Build to remind us why they were so potent.

 

[KR LaLonde]

IMO, the villains in that movie mostly ended up being rather questionable. Only Doc Ock seemed to truly be reformed.

Good advice. Thanks.