The End
As promised, we've had The Beginning, The Middle, and now . . . The End.
As I wrote in the blog entry The Beginning, I usually know where I am going to end. I often, in fact, know my last line.
More often than not, though, the end, for me, is lightning fast. It's like reaching the top of a hill on your bike and flying downhill with no hands on the handlebars. I feel it, as I'm climbing the hill. Up, up, up. I'm usually struggling up that hill, having to work a bit to build to the climax of the book. And then . . . it's all downhill. All my characters get their resolutions, the big theme is fully laid open, the loose ends are tied up, the mystery is solved, the relationship reaches its final point for better or worse . . . whatever. All I know is I find the end fun.
And then, as I'm flying downhill, I approach the last chapter, and it usually feels awesome. That's where I get to impart my last bit of creativity in the book, and then . . . it's the last paragraph, and I get to write something a little poetic, or to bring the book full circle back to what I intended when I started chapter one. I love it.
So that's The End for me. How about you?
As I wrote in the blog entry The Beginning, I usually know where I am going to end. I often, in fact, know my last line.
More often than not, though, the end, for me, is lightning fast. It's like reaching the top of a hill on your bike and flying downhill with no hands on the handlebars. I feel it, as I'm climbing the hill. Up, up, up. I'm usually struggling up that hill, having to work a bit to build to the climax of the book. And then . . . it's all downhill. All my characters get their resolutions, the big theme is fully laid open, the loose ends are tied up, the mystery is solved, the relationship reaches its final point for better or worse . . . whatever. All I know is I find the end fun.
And then, as I'm flying downhill, I approach the last chapter, and it usually feels awesome. That's where I get to impart my last bit of creativity in the book, and then . . . it's the last paragraph, and I get to write something a little poetic, or to bring the book full circle back to what I intended when I started chapter one. I love it.
So that's The End for me. How about you?
posted by Erica Orloff at 11:05 AM
17 Comments:
After a long and dark journey into the depths of Hell, endings are--for me--an opportunity to present the promise of rebirth, of a new beginning, of hope.
I like happy endings, although I can appreciate existential views like those of Hemingway and others.
As an RN, I get to witness some happy endings ans some very sad ones. That's real life. In my fiction, though, where I'm somewhat in control, I like to leave the reader with the feeling that everything is going to be all right.
Jude:
You echo most of what I feel. I do sometimes have ambiguous existential endings (and blogged about that before in an entry called Happily Ever Afer). But even if there's an element of that, I feel there's an air of hope.
E
I love how you summed it up in the previous post: "I want readers to have a satisfying emotional conclusion."
That pretty much says it all.
Just curious, have you ever written more than one ending to a novel? As I approach the final chapters of The Roofer, I can imagine several different endings, all of them emotionally satisfying in their own way.
Of course, I'm probably wrong and will end up being surprised which, happy or sad, is the most satisfying of all.
Hi Jude:
No, I've never written an alternate ending. I have had many (50+) fans write to my website to ask me about a certain character in The Roofer and "what happens after the book"? And I have had a lot of people write to me to ask for sequels of books. But for me, I am always pretty dead sure where the book is going. Because--and you saw Joe Konrath was blogging about themes--my books are nearly ALWAYS about grief and nearly always about loyalty and created families vs. birth families, I consider the endings to be sort of where they HAVE to go or else the hero/heroine's jounrey was pretty much just moving around and a lot of plot but not theme.
E
Hey Erica. My ending is usually a surprise as my characters have their own minds. But it does come swift and painless. I wrap up most loose ends and make way for the next book.
Lisa:
I just love when those characters figure out their own path!
E
Well, since I have only ever written one ending all I can say is that I had a great idea for the end... and my characters hijacked the story and wrote their own. I guess that put's me in Lisa's camp.
The YA WIP I am in now has been completely stolen by the characters, is completely off the plot I had originally started with, and I have no idea where it is headed...
Good thing I am _not_ a control freak.
Ewoh,
You might want to whip a little obedience training on those characters of yours. Sometimes you have to reach into that old steamer trunk in the corner and take out the hand cuffs, ball gags, and leather restraints.
It's like Bill Cosby used to tell his kids: I brought you into this world; I can take you out.
I AM a bit of a control freak when it comes to my fiction, and I'll kill my darlings in a heartbeat if they get out of line.
I am master of my domain. :)
I think the exercise of plotting is a good way for me to get into the story, but I am not set on following the plot, at least not yet. Maybe I need to be more adamant about a few things, but so far it is fun hanging on for the ride.
Right now I'm laying out another outline for a story that just hit me. I like where the plot is going, but if something comes up better when I'm in the writing zone... well I will probably just go with it. So far I have no idea how it will end. I am looking forward to finding out though.
Ewoh,
I agree that nothing is set in stone, but the problem I have sometimes is straying and going off on tangents that really have nothing to do with the story.
Like Michaelangelo, we start with a block of marble and chip away everything that isn't David. But we must guide our chislels, our characters, or we're likely to end up with a statue of Rodney Dangerfield.
I can just hear my MCs yelling "I don't get no respect!"
LOL
Yeah, we certainly don't want our novels going through life drunk and bloated and full of tired jokes. :)
Better to be lean, clean, and bluesy, with a rock-hard...
...abdomen.
Ewoh:
Sometimes, that sort of event (characters taking over), to me, signifies a very organic turn of events in a book.
As a non-outliner . . . sometimes it just goes that way. :-)
E
Jude:
Your analogies on this post have just cracked me up! :-)
E
Here's the beginning to my novel In The Day Of Slaughter: I raced to my locker, grabbed my flight jacket, took the stairs two at a time to the roof.
And the ending: I bit through the fragile shell of chocolate and peanuts and found cold vanilla peace. Nothing ever tasted so good.
Okay, Karmela, the middle's all yours! :)
Jude:
LOL!
Love both the beginning AND the end, by the way. I adore the ending actually, love when a writer finishes with a bit of poetry of some sort. Elegant.
E
Thanks, Erica. I think that end line came to me when I was about halfway into the first draft. I knew my MC was going to have to forgive herself by the end of the book (for not watching her little sister sixteen years ago when sis was abducted while going outside to chase the ice cream truck), so I thought the MC overcoming her aversion to ice cream, allowing herself to enjoy a taste of it after all those years, might have worked as a good symbol of her self-forgiveness.
That's another thing we should keep in mind as we approach endings: Has the character changed in some meaningful way?
I think a substantial change is satisfying, although I realize that (especially for a series character) it's important to keep those emotional holes bleeding a bit.
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