Elusive Ending
How do you Wrap it Up?

Personally I have trouble with endings, in both short stories and in novels. I often unsure how a story will end; it generally "tells me", and sometimes I'm really surprised. I recently started a story that was intended as a romance, only to have it turn out ending with a murder/suicide.

Sometimes I just get fed up, or feel like I've run out of time, or that the story is getting too long, and I force the story to end, perhaps prematurely.

In my novels, I have to fight against "happily ever after" endings. All three of my pubbed novels so far have ended with the heroine more or less committing to the "hero" (or one of them!). No actual marriages but definite hints in the air. (I never read much romance, but I seemed to have absorbed its conventions.) In EXPOSURE, coming out (sometime!) from Orion, I tried very hard to avoid this kind of cliché. It's a noirish book and I wanted to have some kind of uncertainty at the end.

I'm not sure how successful I was, though.

So what about others on the list? Do you know how your stories will end when you start them? Or do your stories catch you unawares?

Do you have trouble tying up loose ends? Or are you of the camp that a few loose ends makes for a more intriguing and interesting ending?     —Lisabet Sarai

But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.  —Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet In Heaven

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From Pat Brown
In my short stories, which are entirely erotic, my plots are about as basic as you can get - boy meets boy, boy fucks boy, boy will keep on fucking boy as long as he can. I don't do sad endings or kill anyone off in those.

Now my novels are another story. My endings ALWAYS suck the first draft (or two) In my current ms, I've completely rewritten the ending 3 times. I have a couple of beta readers going over this draft and I'm very interested in knowing what they think of the ending, since I think I've pretty well nailed it. But in past novels I've killed off main characters - always with a great deal of sadness - but I did it when it enhanced the story. Conversely, I've not killed off a character who was originally supposed to be a minor character, who literally grew into a bigger role and ended up being the key character in my SF trilogy. So I think any story ending has to have flexibility. I have to know my endings before I can start, but it doesn't mean those endings can't change. I won't lock myself into anything.

From Nancy Liedel
If that's where your characters are leading then why? Furthermore an HEA [happy ever after] ending can mean the difference between a sale and a novel that sits. Sure, a lot of novels sell without them, but there is a huge audience for them. I recently proposed a none HEA ending to a group of readers and they, almost to a person, balked and said they would not spend money on it. I figure I'll write stuff that sells for now and worry about creative artistry when I'm more established (Then I will write it, but not in my own name).

From Erastes
I think "pat" or formulaiec endings are generally trite, and not what I, personally want to read. Of course I'm rooting for the hero, I want him to get his heroine or preferably the hero, but life isn't like that. I may want my movies to be a bit of chewing gum for the brain, but I like my books to be a little more challenging.

Great endings that "don't" end happily with every string tied and all villains vanquished.

Gone with the Wind
Lord of the Rings
His Dark Materials
Gatsby

Aw hell, just look at any list of 100 best novels and see.

Of course it does depend on the genre and the audience - if you are writing for one, that is - I don't. Romance fans will say that they want a Happy Ever After, but I'd always say that the book that twists your heart into pieces at the end like Les Dame Aux Camillias or Anna Karenina or Brokeback Mountain will stay in the readers heart much longer than a hundred "And we've been married ever since."

I know suthors who write "on the wing" and just write and see what happens. Whilst I don't outline my novels (some do, down to the molecular level) I always know how they are going to end, and generally write the last scene first, or quite early on in the process - I stole the idea from JKRowling, and it's stood me in good stead. That way I've always got somewhere to head towards.

From Morgan Hawke
Fairy Tales and Myths were my foundational reading, so they became my base model for how a story should go. The lost find their way, the wicked are punished, and the weak become strong. Symmetrical closure: a story ends where it begins, making a nice tidy loop.

This doesn't mean ending a story in the location it began, or that full irrevocable transformations don't happen, but that the story ties the knot to the emotional or Karmic place they began. Monsters are faced, emotional hang-ups are dealt with, and problems are solved.

What is begun - finishes.

It sounds perfectly simple, and it can be, however I despise stories I can guess the ending to, so naturally, I refuse to write them that way.

I prefer to write stories that throw the reader completely off the obvious path that goes straight through the center of the village, and force them into the deep dark woods. The obvious answer is the wrong answer. The simple solution is impossible to accomplish. What seems to be a easy task has impossible if not fatal complications.

Once the reader has been sent careening off into territory they never expected to go, and gotten utterly wrapped up in a plot they never expected - that's when I start tying up ends by way of pulling rugs out from under the reader's feet.

From Kathleen Bradean
I don't bother to envision an ending for short stories when I begin them, as they tend to resolve themselves when the conflict ends. Novels are a whole different beast.

If you've explored an idea to a conclusion, then it's time for the story to end. Easier said than done. I have that trouble sometimes too, so I appreciate closure when I recognize it, but I can't tell how to fix it when it won't happen. Maybe set that aside, come out of the immersion, and wait until you can look at the idea objectively before you revisit the ending.

I'll get killed for saying this, but Americans tend to expect happy endings. That isn't to say that we can't handle unhappy endings, so please don't flame me for that. It's a matter of our "national personality." Americans tend to be an optimistic people (generalizations here, yes) with an eye on the future, and tend to expect the future to be better than the present. When you come from that mindset, it's a little harder to write a dismal ending.

I think if you're having problems with the ending, the problem actually begins much earlier, somewhere in the middle of the story, when you lose your way.

Two years ago at Saints and Sinners, I went to a master class taught by Jim Grimsley titled: The Murk In The Middle Of The Novel. I don't think there's a better word than murk to describe how muddled things get when you're two months and ten chapters into a novel. Or as I'm now visualizing it - the forest for the trees.

Writing is sort of like hiking. For most people, the destination is where they begin mentally. "I want to get to this place. How do I get there?" Next they find the trailhead, the place where the path begins. Then they start to hike. The problems arise along the way when the trees close in. It's easy to loose sight of both the beginning and the end.

Referring to my notes from the class, Jim mentioned that one of the problems of writing a novel is that you can't hold the whole novel in your head the same way you can a short story. Exactly! You have to pay attention to where you are while keeping the destination in mind, but there's no room in the brain for the minute details of the entire path. Jim also reminded us that the only direction is forward. Every sentence has to move the story towards the end. No scenic routes, no interesting but useless asides, no looping back stories - just keep moving towards the end.

From Diane
Yes, it totally pisses me off when a book just sort of stops--the best way I can describe the type of ending to which I think Jane was referring. As a matter of fact, I almost threw Stephen King's Cell across the room after I finished it.

Someone talked earlier about getting bogged down or tired and needing to end a book or story and coming up with a less-than-stellar way to do so. I've been there. But I figure if I can't end it, it's not going to work, and I may as well bag the entire project--so I find a way. I don't think the ending needs to be a fairy tale one to be good or interesting, but I think it needs to finish what was begun--in some way. 

I'm with Lisabet; I don't always know how my story or book will end when I start writing it. I usually let it find its natural path. And sometimes, I know exactly how it will end--but it doesn't--the characters have other ideas! Lisabet's murder-suicide ending seems a great, if pretty extreme, case-in-point.

I'm not an outlining kind of girl. I hated doing it in school and I don't even go there now. But I have a basic idea of what the piece will be about before I start. I know who the main characters are and what the main plot line is, including an idea of how I want it to end. Then I start writing, and follow it where it leads. If it starts to go south I either fix it before it gets too out of hand, or I let it go--because the Magnolia trees are really beautiful in the South this time of year...

From Scriblr
I have had the same feeling about endings. With the mystery novel that is at present laying in pieces on my work table After an earlier draft I found I needed to "kill off" one of my major characters. I had come to the feeling that her death would propel the development of the other main character (which it has), but I agonized over it...it was almost as if I was the one that had to do the deed. I guess after awhile when a writer works with a group of characters they almost take on a "real life" feel so their death is like the death of a close friend. When I have a feeling of hesitation I recall something a writer friend told me..."Sometimes you have to kill a few characters to move the story along." Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and remember the reason you are there....to tell a story.

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