Meg Chittenden Waves
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Getting to the End

To ensure a strong ending, your main characters must act to change the initial situation or problem. Don't rely on coincidence, or fate, or what the Greeks call deus ex machina--a god out of a machine--to resolve the story. Whether, in the final outcome, the main characters win or lose, whether their change is for the better or for the worse, they should be actively involved in bringing about that change, rather than sitting around bemoaning their fate while things happen to them.

If you have your causes and effects in proper sequence,( see the tip on writing the middle) the middle of the novel will flow into the ending and the ending will be logical. It must not be predictable. There should be enough conflict and suspense throughout the novel to create doubt about the outcome. Maybe things won't work out. Maybe the murderer will not be caught; maybe Thomas will not wake from the coma; maybe Jill won't find true love; maybe Karrell will lose the battle with the Selacians and earth will be destroyed.

The ending must also be believable. If a man has behaved brutally toward his wife all the way through your story, it will be difficult to convince readers to accept an ending in which he has suddenly seen the error of his ways and changed into a loveable guy.

The ending must tie up loose ends, yet leave a feeling that much more could and will happen in the future to these fascinating people, whom readers will think about long after turning the last page.

If you can come up with a surprise ending that meets all of these criteria, then by all means use it. There should be some surprise in any ending. Or at least, some part of it should be unexpected. But you have to be careful not to sacrifice believability for surprise.

The ending of your story is every bit as important as the beginning. If readers don't like the beginning, they won't go on reading. If they aren't satisfied by the ending, they won't buy your next book.

Don't write an unhappy ending for any novel because you think that will make it more literary. It won't. One of the things I've noticed in reading beginners' novels is that the endings are almost always downbeat. If you are going to kill everyone off in your stories, be sure it's necessary. Most people read novels for entertainment, for escape. If it's necessary to the integrity of the story for a number of people to die, then die they must, but if it's not absolutely crucial, why not let one or two people live? As company for the main character, if for no other reason.

Above all else, the ending of a novel must arise logically and believably and satisfyingly from the story that has preceded it. Whatever action the characters take must have been prepared for earlier in the story. A sentence like, "Gathering all his strength, Bart leaped over the nine foot high fence and ran off into the sunset," won't do unless you've already shown Bart to be an Olympic class highjumper.

The endings of two novel genres, romance and mystery, must meet other requirements besides those listed previously. Romance novels are expected to end happily. Quite often, I've heard critics of the genre talk about "formula novels," as though there is some kind of blueprint that can be followed, but I've never known what this so-called formula is. Perhaps the word applies to the earlier definition of a romance novel: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. Most of today's romance novels are far more complex and varied than that.

However, the romance novel still requires one absolutely necessary ingredient: A happy ending. The ending must be in doubt, though, or there will be no suspense. Throughout the novel something must prevent this man and this woman from solving whatever problems are keeping them emotionally apart. At the end, this problem must be solved in a believable, entertaining and unpredictable way.

In a mystery novel the ending is also extremely important. You can't just have your sleuth suddenly slap her forehead and announce she's solved the whole thing, especially if you haven't revealed her step-by-step method of arriving at this solution. You must be sure you have laid out all your clues, planted some red herrings, given the reader all the information the sleuth has, at the same time managing not to reveal who the murderer is. (None of this is easy.) When you finally do reveal who the murderer is, the reader will be able to believe you, because of the clues and information you so generously worked into the novel along the way. Your readers should still be surprised by some aspect of the solution.

You will also need to explain certain things to your readers, and answer questions they'll have on their minds. It used to be that at the end of a mystery, the sleuth would gather all the suspects in a room and explain the deductions and circumstantial evidence that had led to the correct conclusions. This is often still done today, with some variations. In skillful hands it can work. Or it can be totally boring and long-winded.

One way to avoid this boredom for readers is to clear up most of the readers' questions before the actual murderer is revealed. If you can do this during an action scene, so much the better. If the murderer is revealed while pointing a gun at the sleuth--some explanation can be made at this point. The murderer might brag a little about the crime, but beware--if the bragging lasts too long and the murderer goes into too much detail, the readers' willing suspension of disbelief will crack under the strain.

For all types of novels, you need to break necessary explanations into several parts, tie various lesser threads up as you go along--in believable and possibly surprising ways. Then produce the final, believable, but unexpected and unpredictable ending that fully satisfies readers.

None of this is easy.

Be sure you stop when your novel reaches the end, when all the various threads are tied and resolutions or solutions are arrived at. Bow out when your story is over. Put the cover on the typewriter or turn off the computer. Leave.