Final Words

I'm not quite to the end of my current work-in-progress yet. That is, I have written it, but that was for a previous draft. I'm still working on the current draft.

Is the last line as important as the first? At the moment, the last two paragraphs of my novel are:

I leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “You better not.” 

The conductor approached the front of the stage and bowed. Then he turned to the orchestra and dropped a downbeat.

Okay, I shared mine. What's the last line of your novel?

Secrets and Lies

The ending is the place where all must be revealed.

Of course, any secrets the main character is keeping might be revealed earlier. The lies that were told to the main character could come out before the climax. But it's more likely that if there's a secret or a lie that is driving the plot, that won't come out until the last possible moment.

The worst possible moment.

If the story is based on a secret, then a major player in the story must not know the secret. The other characters must keep it from him/her. Actively. But we'll all be disappointed if that character never learns the secret. It must come out sometime.

Same with a big lie. It must be kept from someone. That someone might be the reader. But we'll all be disappointed if we never learn the truth.

What secrets and/or lies are your characters keeping?

Ending Badly

Endings are tricky things. They need to conclude the story in a reasonable and satisfying way.

Both. Not one or the other.

A bad ending colors the whole story. There are movies that I hate based solely on how they ended. (Pay It Forward. Seven. The English Patient. Project X...)

Am I putting too much pressure on myself?

Deep breaths. I can do this. I won't muck it up. I think.

How about you? What stories (movies, books, TV shows, what-have-you) have had endings that soured you on the entirety of the story? Or is that just me?

Endings

I've been thinking a lot about endings lately. It's December. I have finals this week (on Thursday--wish me luck!). And I'm yet again coming up on the end of my novel.

I know what I want, but at the moment it feels kind of abrupt. I'm working on it. What does an ending need? What makes for a good ending?

Have I tied up all the loose ends?

I pretty much knew how the novel would end when I started it. Someone tried to kill the king. We should learn the identity of the perpetrator. The villain should try one more time. And perhaps succeed...

The whole story leads to the end. All sorts of details should now make sense.

It's scary.

I feel like...

I don't know if I've done my job. I guess that's what beta readers are for. (Note to self: get beta readers.)

Anything coming to an end for you? Do you have your story's ending in mind when you begin it?  

Hunger Games--The opposite of Lord of the Rings

I haven't received any suggestions for great endings, and I'm finding it easier to think of the ones that left me flat myself. Perhaps it is true that we can learn more from other people's mistakes than we ever realize.

The response to yesterday's post has emboldened me. Today I'm going to air my disappointment with the final chapter of the Hunger Games.

First, Suzanne Collins is one of the writers that made me cry in shame. She's brilliant with the way she handles scene and chapter breaks. Her descriptions draw you in and rip at your emotions.When I read the Hunger Games I knew I should give up writing and never try again because I would never be as good as her.

However, whereas Tolkien dragged out his ending, I felt Collins rushed the end of Mockingjay. After investing so much of my time and emotions in the lives of Katniss, Peeta, Gale, et al, I needed more closure than we were given. Sure the wrap up was there, but none of the details I craved.

It felt like Collins got tired, or someone told her she could only have five more pages to wrap everything up. (Yes, I know I'm sort of contradicting my thoughts from yesterday).

The point(s) I'm trying to make this week is this:

• There is a fine line between a great ending and a "meh" ending.
• The ending is JUST as important as the beginning, maybe more so because it's the last thing the reader reads.

If you have an ending you would like to discuss this week, please email me at unicornbellsubmissions.blogspot.com with "Endings" in the subject line.

Dangerous Territory

I'm about to step into it.

This week we are talking about endings and how to do them well. Hopefully you've found some that you want to share with us this week. I think the best way to do it is for you to email me the title of the book and why the ending worked for you. Don't worry about spoilers too much, be honest and detailed with what worked for you. (unicornbellsubmissions@gmail.com with Endings in the subject line)

Today I want to talk about what NOT to do. Please don't stone me when I'm done.

Tolkien managed to get away with something we will never be allowed to do. Ever.

He wrote 100 more pages of story after the climax of The Return of the King.

Stay with me a minute. The ring is destroyed on page 250 of my paperback copy. Sam and Frodo are reunited with all their friends on page 255. Said friends have just finished a mighty battle a page before that sees the orcs running away.

At this point, all the tension has been released. There is nothing else for us to worry about. Not really. However Tolkien spends another 92 pages getting our heroes back home, cleaning up said home from the riff raff that's taken over, and then getting the elves, Bilbo, and Frodo on the boats to the west.

Now, I LOVE Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, but as a writer today, I don't have the luxury of spending 90 some odd pages to tie up all the threads and bring the story to a complete end. I wish I could. It's in my head, but the reader gets bored once the conflict is over. I admit I got a little bored after the war was over myself.

The moral here is:

If you are J.R.R. Tolkien, you can do whatever you want.

But you are NOT Tolkien.

And neither am I.

Normal folks like us would need to end the story by page 260.

Thoughts? Am I completely off my rocker?

The Right Place to Start and End

If you've spent any amount of time on writing blogs, you've heard how important it is to START in the right place in your story. Volumes of books and blogs have been written on the subject. Finding that place can drive you bonkers. I know I rewrote the beginning of Sendek: The Magic Wakes at least 100 times.

In the process I moved around scenes, cut entire scenes, wrote new scenes--all in the hopes of finally crafting a first chapter that would make the reader fall in love with my MC and her plight.

Now that I have an editor helping me polish this book, I've come to realize another important point. Where you end, or how quickly you end after the big climax is also important. I did rework the ending a couple of times. Maybe three? Yeah, not nearly as many times as the beginning.

I knew the ending was taking too long, but I had these loose ends to tie up. And I needed to plant the seeds for the next book in the series. Before signing with WiDo, I cut almost 4000 words from the end. If you're not cringing you should be (that's about 14 pages). I finally decided to cut the last chapter in its entirety and it is now one of the first two chapters of Orek: The Search for Knowledge.

Even with that much streamlining I have too many pages after my conflict is resolved. In the words of my wonderful editor, "After ___(spoilers)___, I'm no longer invested."

Ouch.

But completely true.

Here's my questions for you:

1. What makes an ending satisfying for you?
2. Do you have a different criteria for the ending of a first book in a series? (what and why?)

Over the next few days I want to take a look at endings that WORKED. Feel free to send me your favorites at unicornbellsubmissions@gmail.com.