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- Take Them by Surprise. (Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None) Surprise works every single time. That’s because us humans are just curious creatures.
- Play on Their Sentiments with an Elegiac Fade Out. (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera) Milan Kundera takes a very different approach when he wraps up his The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- Throw Them a Punchline. (Animal Farm, George Orwell) With this one, you have to be careful. Do you know that situation when Uncle Albert at the holiday lunch table makes a big fuss about his upcoming joke, but the punchline is almost non-existent?
- Leave Open Questions and Create Suspense. (Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell) If you want to tickle your reader with suspense, cue an open ending: Ok, the Apaches are defeated, but will they be back again?
May 14, 2024 · Thematic Resonance. The ending should reinforce and amplify the central themes of your novel. It’s an opportunity to leave readers with a powerful message or lingering question that ties back to the story’s underlying meaning and purpose.
- Cliffhanger
- Repetition
- Sense of Sound
- Descriptions
- Unspoken Dialogue
- Asking Questions
- Emotions
- Contrast
- Memory
- The Epiphany
Normally, writers think of using a cliffhanger at the end of a chapter. But they absolutely can be used at the end of a story or book, for a few reasons: 1. Pique the reader’s interest for the next book in the series 2. Uses the “in media res” technique to go out on a high point, rather than dribble to a conclusion 3. Extend the reader’s imaginatio...
Ancient Hebrew poetry never used rhyme — it used repetition for emphasis. Repetition is always noticeable. There’s a power to it. It rivals rhyme as a device to shape language. Whatever you’re ending on, it’s something you want to emphasize, right? So heighten that emphasis with repetition. Here’s an exercise: take all the examples below and try re...
Good writers understand that sensory details are the lifeblood of fiction. And just as images are crucial ways to end a story (that’s the next section), you can also use sound as a way to dial up or dial down the end of your story. A crescendo ends a story well because it makes the story’s end feel climatic. While a decrescendo eases you out of the...
When you end a story, you’re helping the reader transition from the world of the story back into the real world. Sometimes that transition is easier if the last lines of the story don’t deal with the main characters, or plot, or themes, but instead talk about the universe of the story. Namely: description. Try to describe a particular thing in the ...
Unspoken Dialogue is very similar to a cliffhanger. While a cliffhanger refuses to resolve plot, this Unspoken Dialogue technique refuses to resolve the dialogue. There’s tension when a character wants to say something, but doesn’t. If you’re trying to learn how to write good dialogue, it’s always important to remember that characters don’t often s...
A question is one of the most popular ways to end a story (look at all the examples below!). I could even add more quite easily, like the question to conclude Margaret Atwood’s book, “Handmaid’s Tale”: “Are there any questions?” But if you use this technique, I would recommend following these three guidelines: 1. Must not have an easy answer 2. Mus...
You can’t write good fiction without making your characters feel things (and your reader feel things). So here, we see authors ending stories by showing the final arc of their character’s emotions. Some of these characters have emotional epiphanies, feeling something for the first time. Others have felt it all along but perhaps only now have been a...
Paul Harding, who won the Pulitzer Prize for “Tinkers,” said that contrast is the essential technique of music, painting, and storytelling. Below, we see contrasts between: 1. chill cats and stressed-out humans 2. the busyness of day with the solitude of night 3. the flowers of love with the chants for the dead. When you contrast something, you thr...
Marcel Proust’s memories brought back by the taste of a madeleine are probably the most famous memories in literature, but stories have always used memory to make readers nostalgic, evoke the senses, and make us feel the bite of time. When you end a story with memory, it ties the whole story together — past is united with the present. In some ways,...
The epiphany ending is the classic story ending. After everything the character has gone through, what have they learned? This is the chance to show that the journey has not been in vain, that your characters have changed and learned and grown because of this journey. Epiphanies are particularly useful for short stories, rather than novels, because...
Mar 17, 2023 · The 6 types of story endings (with examples) Let's dive into the most common types of story endings that you'll see over and over again in storytelling. Note that, as we provide some examples from novel endings, there will be... spoilers! 1. Resolved Ending. Wrap it up and put a bow on it.
- 1. Your central question is the driving force of what will happen in the plot, so make sure you settle it by the time the book ends. Even if your h...
- 2. “You have to assume the character has gone through hell, so let them see something beautiful about the world that allows them to take a breath a...
- 3. This is good advice for every stage of writing, but perhaps nowhere is it more important than the ending. While there are certain genres where a...
- 4. To create a satisfying ending, close your book with purpose. As Publishing Director of Endeavor Media, Jasmin Kirkbride’s biggest tip is to make...
- 5. In some ways, the final line of a story is even more important than the first one. It’s the last impression you’re going to make in your reader’...
- 6. Editor Jenn Bailey says that a good ending brings the book’s internal and external story arcs to a rational conclusion: “You need to come full c...
- 7. There’s a balance to endings — too little resolution and your book will feel rushed and unsatisfying, but too much and the denouement starts to...
May 19, 2023 · So if you are struggling with the ending of a poem, try ending it sooner. There’s a very simple way to do this —suggested by my experience with the James Wright poem. Simply insert a page break before the last stanza or sentence and print out the poem without it.
Apr 25, 2019 · Ending a poem, a short story, a novel, or an essay with a question can be a valuable technique, not one to be over-used, but one to be held in reserve for just the right moment. Here, for instance, the ending of Jennie Gerhardt, a tender, magnificent novel by Theodore Dreiser:
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Deciding how to end a novel is an important choice. Read seven types of story endings and how not to end your novel to avoid dissatisfying closing chapters.
