[Laer Carroll]

Last week I read a novel by one of my favorite writers. It was a lot of fun. Until the very last page. It just sort of dribbled away. There was no feeling of completion. No "orgasm," even a little one!

I don't require every book to resolve every issue it raises. I even like a few unresolved issues. If a book is good I'll eagerly await a sequel.

Nor do I require a big explosive end. But I'd like to leave a book with at least a tiny satisfied sigh. If not an exclamation point I want a period - or at least a comma! Not a dribble-off ellipsis ...

Now, ironically, I'm facing the challenge of doing what I desire in a last chapter, and a last page. I'm finishing a novel.

The last chapter is half done. The chapter started OK. Now I have to finish it. My first draft does not have to be perfect. But it does have to at least have the seeds of what I think of as a good ending.

What IS a good ending? What are its qualities? How do you achieve them?

[Teresa Edgerton]

I read somewhere that a good ending doesn't have to match the reader's expectations but it has to satisfy them. For me, this means that there has to be some sense of closure. Something the characters have been moving toward through most or all of the story has to be achieved (or failed) or reached.

As a writer, I always have the most trouble writing the last line. It seems to me that it ought to be memorable in some way. I don't believe that I've ever written one that entirely satisfied me. Most of them I don't even remember.

Of course that might just be old age.

[EMMAXIS]

Last week I read a novel by one of my favorite writers. It was a lot of fun. Until the very last page. It just sort of dribbled away. There was no feeling of completion. No "orgasm," even a little one!

I don't require every book to resolve every issue it raises. I even like a few unresolved issues. If a book is good I'll eagerly await a sequel.

Nor do I require a big explosive end. But I'd like to leave a book with at least a tiny satisfied sigh. If not an exclamation point I want a period - or at least a comma! Not a dribble-off ellipsis ...

Now, ironically, I'm facing the challenge of doing what I desire in a last chapter, and a last page. I'm finishing a novel.

The last chapter is half done. The chapter started OK. Now I have to finish it. My first draft does not have to be perfect. But it does have to at least have the seeds of what I think of as a good ending.

What IS a good ending? What are its qualities? How do you achieve them?


I couldn't agree more. For me, a good story is a good ending, plain and simple. A good ending is "quoth the raven nevermore," is "two more people" (Shindler's List), is the last line in Frank Herbert's Dune, "she will be my wife, but you my lover" (that's from memory). I like it when everything in the book hinges on the last page. I imagine it as the funnel of a literary tornado, where the ending is at the epicenter, or a black hole singularity where all the plot threads and character motivations and secrets you've been holding back collapse in on themselves.

[Holbrook]

Actually, to me, the last line in itself is unimportant. It is the story that has unfolded and brought me to that last line that is important.

What is important is the following;

By the last line the main character has completed this part of his/her/its journey.

That the conclusion is a solid closure, matching in tone and texture the main characteristics of the novel.(I don't mean that everything is neatly tied up, just a good place for the reader to leave the characters)

You get the sense that the characters will continue in their existence, even if you are not there reading about them.

That the writer has not pulled some God awful mutated white rabbit out of a battered hat to force an ending.

Want to be writers seem to obsess about the first line and the last. Yes, the first one has to draw the reader to the next line and the final one has to finish the tale, but it is what lies between that is the most important. It has to be a journey that is both interesting and enjoyable to the reader on a whole.

[EMMAXIS]

Actually, to me, the last line in itself is unimportant. It is the story that has unfolded and brought me to that last line that is important.

What is important is the following;

By the last line the main character has completed this part of his/her/its journey.

That the conclusion is a solid closure, matching in tone and texture the main characteristics of the novel.(I don't mean that everything is neatly tied up, just a good place for the reader to leave the characters)

You get the sense that the characters will continue in their existence, even if you are not there reading about them.

That the writer has not pulled some God awful mutated white rabbit out of a battered hat to force an ending.

Want to be writers seem to obsess about the first line and the last. Yes, the first one has to draw the reader to the next line and the final one has to finish the tale, but it is what lies between that is the most important. It has to be a journey that is both interesting and enjoyable to the reader on a whole.


Making broad statements about "wannabe" writers isn't nice. I am sure everyone in this thread is an actual writer. Writing is a passion, and whatever drives that passion is specific to the individual. Of course, what's in the middle is important, but too often great books fall flat because the endings fail to deliver. How often do you hear the refrain that, "Oh, I didn't like that ending"? Readers care about endings! It's the payoff to a good story. If a wannabe writer obsesses about an ending, then I am betting he or she will be the kind of writer who comes up with good endings. Some readers care less about endings, and probably prefer different types of writers than I do. It's all relative. Remember, there is no right or wrong way to write, no magic formula, no such thing as should.

And that's all I'll be saying on the matter.

[Holbrook]

Making broad statements about "wannabe" writers isn't nice. I am sure everyone in this thread is an actual writer. Writing is a passion, and whatever drives that passion is specific to the individual. Of course, what's in the middle is important, but too often great books fall flat because the endings fail to deliver. How often do you hear the refrain that, "Oh, I didn't like that ending"? Readers care about endings! It's the payoff to a good story. If a wannabe writer obsesses about an ending, then I am betting he or she will be the kind of writer who comes up with good endings. Some readers care less about endings, and probably prefer different types of writers than I do. It's all relative. Remember, there is no right or wrong way to write, no magic formula, no such thing as should.

And that's all I'll being saying on the matter.

Oh for goodness sake, stop seeing attacks in everything I post. I was not attacking anyone. You seem determined to see my comments as a personal attack, why? When I post, I post a general remark, commenting and giving my thoughts that is all. I said, 'actually, to me,' at the beginning of my post, which means it is just my personal opinion, no more no less. Which also means take eveything following with a pinch of salt...

You see "want to be writer," as a derogatory remark, I see it and damn well still wear it as a badge of honour. I see it as someone who is trying very hard to reach a goal. It's like a child, saying "I want to be a fireman." I wouldn't knock back a child, why should I knock back someone on the same path as me?


I was trying to make the point that folks worry and obsess about hooks, first lines, last lines, when there is no need too. Folks should write down the story in their head and heart first and foremost. Save the worrying about everything else for when you are editing your creation...

[JunkMonkey]

I was trying to make the point that folks worry and obsess about hooks, first lines, last lines, when there is no need too. Folks should write down the story in their head and heart first and foremost. Save the worrying about everything else for when you are editing your creation...

Hear! Hear!

I'm a 'wannbee writer and proud of it. I love it when fictions, but especially films confound expectations and 'fail to deliver' a pat ending. Hollywood used to have the balls to do it. Not any more. The best ending of any film ever? Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Fulfils all of Holbrook's points and leaves the audience writing their own ending. These days everyone is so obsessed with reassuring the audience by delivering what has been proven to work, and satisfying all the tick boxes and check lists put in place by conservative (small c) play-it-safe, tiny-minded producers that no one takes the risk any more. More books and films should just stop in the middle of a

[Mickief]

JunkMonkey, that is just priceless...
:D

[Erfael]

I read a book earlier this year that did just that, and it's one of my best reads so far this year...

[Teresa Edgerton]

You see "want to be writer," as a derogatory remark, I see it and damn well still wear it as a badge of honour. I see it as someone who is trying very hard to reach a goal.

But "want to be writer" and even worse "wannabe" is so often used in a derogatory sense, it's no wonder if people assume they're being insulted. I never use either term, preferring to say "aspiring writers" instead. (Although I hope that we all, published and unpublished writers alike, aspire to be better.)