Hello, writers. It's been a while since we talked about endings. I'm thinking about them right now because I've gotten to a place in my current work-in-progress where the ending doesn't fit.
Of course, we've all read books where the ending doesn't fit, but that doesn't give us the right to write them.
In order to fit, the ending must come naturally out of who the protagonist is and how s/he would and does cope with the challenge s/he faces. It must be possible and reasonably believable under the circumstances. It should reflect the beginning in some way. (Doesn't have to, but it's a nice touch.)
Teh Guru told me these things about endings:
The last line and the first line are the most important sentences you write.
The ending should make the reader say “How surprising, and yet how perfect.”
A rejection letter I once got told me something else important about endings:
It doesn't seem like your plot proceeds from the character. It seems like she is just following along where the author leads her.
Plug in “ending” for “plot” and you have the problem with a lot of endings. They're delivered by the stork. They drop from the sky. They happen because the author decided, before s/he started writing, that this was how the thing was going to end.
That's the problem I'm having right now. I planned, way back in May, for the story to end with my protagonist committing a startling, destructive act that would reverse everything, change the game, and force a new society.
Now that I've written about 60,000 words, I can't see any reason why she would do this. Drat.
So I'm resorting to two of my favorite stand-bys, bubble-maps and the Game of 20.
Last night I made a bubble-map called (as my bubble-maps often are at this stage of the drafting process) “Guns You've Hung On the Wall”. In the first draft I've usually got way more guns than I'll ever fire, so some will end up being deleted in future drafts. On this chart, I used only those few guns I thought were likely to remain:
- the mysterious stranger
- the enemy army
- the protagonist's magic
- the corrupt government
All of these elements are integral to my story and so they have to be in some way dealt with in the ending. Not necessarily solved, just dealt with.
So I bubble-mapped each of those guns-on-the-wall in turn, and identified the main question for each of the above guns:
- the mysterious stranger: Who does he represent and what does he want?
- the enemy army: How will [protagonist] deal with this threat?
- the protagonist's magic: What does [protagonist] do about [magical problem]?
- the corrupt government: Who ends up ruling the country?
For each of these questions I'm going to do the Game of 20, which we've discussed here before. I think it was Tara who first told us about this game, in fact.
I'll make a list of 20 answers to each question. The answers can be obvious, unlikely, bizarre, deus ex machina, anything. Somewhere in the list, most of the time, will be the answer that fits.
Those are some of my strategies for dealing with the ending problem.
Some authors actually write several different endings for their novel to see which one fits. I haven't tried that.
Does anyone have any other strategies for getting the ending right?
Tonight's challenge:
Since the above doesn't lend itself readily to a challenge, try this:
The Jewel of Togwogmagog, long sought by the Callow Youth and his Stout Companion, has been found. Or it hasn't been found, and something else has happened instead.
Assume most of the ending is already written. So you don't need to fill in any details of what happened. Just write the closing paragraph or line.
Absolutely limit yourself to 120 words.
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