First off, let me point out that the end part is a whole section of a story or novel, not just the Big Story Climax or the final confrontation scene. The Big Climax or Grande Finale is the thing that gets the most attention in most how-to-write books, because it’s clearly critical to the whole book – mess up the scene where the main problem gets solved, and everything else falls apart. But really, there’s a lot more to it than that.

The first bit of the ending section is the transition from the middle part to the end part. Often, it’s a gradual transition, like heading for a mountain and not really being able to pinpoint the spot where the foothills end and the mountain range begins. Other times, there’s a sharp demarcation – a character suddenly sits up straight and says “I know how to steal the sword!” and we’re clearly off into the endgame. Sometimes, it’s even sharper, with the author dividing the story into sections or parts or books in a way that makes it obvious that the characters have reached the point of no return, and one way or another are about to take their final swing at solving the central story problem.

The second part of the ending section is the specific setup for the Big Climax. The general setup, where the reader works out what the central story problem is and why it matters, usually takes place in the middle of the book; the specific setup is the point where they settle their affairs the night before the battle, or the hero agrees to marry the villainess as the last possible way of saving the family farm, or the prince announces he’s going to be coming around tomorrow with this glass slipper for all the unmarried girls to try on.

Right before the Big Climax, the characters hit bottom in as many ways as the writer can make work at once. The heroine’s True Love appears to have abandoned her just before the battle in which the army is outnumbered five to one; the villainess locks the church doors as the wedding march starts; Cinderella is locked in her room while the stepsisters try on the shoe.

And then comes the climax – the big scene in which the heroine’s True Love shows up with reinforcements just in the nick of time; the organist reveals herself as the hero’s mother who’s brought the paid-off mortgage so her son won’t have to marry the villainess after all; Cinderella escapes in the nick of time and not only can wear the shoe, but has the other half of the pair.

In a straightforward story, the author has been promising and building up this particular conflict for chapters and chapters. The climax is the payoff – the point where the central story problem gets faced and solved once and for all…or where the problem overwhelms the characters for good. It’s very difficult to pull a bait-and-switch in the climax scene – to have an entire novel in which the problem appears to be returning the rightful king to the throne, for instance, and then have the climax be the establishment of a parliamentary democracy. It can be done, but only by a) carefully planting clues in the beginning and middle, and b) having the “switch” (the unexpected solution) be a more satisfying solution to the problem than the one the readers thought they were going to get. Not a better solution: a more satisfying one, in the context of the story.

Finally, there’s the denouement or validation, where any remaining loose ends get tied up, awards and weddings and funerals take place, and the characters are poised to move off into the sunset and the rest of their lives, for good or ill. There are three common, closely related mistakes that writers make here: 1) trying to tie up every single subplot and loose end, 2) running on for too long, and 3) overwriting the ending in a desperate attempt to find a killer last sentence.

Mind you, a killer last sentence is an excellent thing, if you can in fact find one. It is not, however, a necessity. (Given a choice, you’re much better off spending all that time looking for a killer opening sentence…but that’d be a different post.) Also, sometimes things that don’t look like killer ending lines, like “He walked out and closed the door gently behind him” or “Well, I’m home,” he said,” can become killer ending lines in context.

That whole last-sentence thing is a lot harder to recognize than you’d think. When you’ve been immersed in a novel for months, it’s hard to let go. Sometimes, even with a short story. When I was writing “Stronger Than Time,” an editor friend asked to see it. I sent a rough draft, with the comment “I know it needs about another half page, but this is what I got,” to which the editor wrote back “Don’t you dare add anything. It’s perfect right where it is.” And it is, and I can see that…now. Then, I was quite taken aback, as at the time I was really sure I needed to get my remaining characters actually out of the castle, instead of just talking about it.

Really abrupt endings, where the validation or denouement is cut to a sentence or two, are not my favorite things, but on the whole I’d say they’re better than the ones that go on and on even after the main problem has been solved. There’s a balance point that feels right – the longer the story, the longer the validation sequence. A short story may be fine with a few sentences or a paragraph; a novel may need anywhere from a paragraph to a chapter or so; a multi-book series may need several chapters of wrap-up to really feel finished.

Really over, I mean, as in “this is the last paragraph, and what comes next is ‘The End’ at the bottom of the page.” This is usually some way after the big climax in which the central story problem is solved (they kill the dragon/blow up the Death Star/arrest the murderer), but how long after?

The answer, as usual, is: it varies. To some extent, it depends on the length of the story – a five page short story may be too long if there’s more than half a page after the climax, but nearly every reader I know would feel that having only a page or two of wrap-up to a trilogy just wasn’t enough. Similarly, if three pages out of the five are wrap-up, there’s probably something wrong with the short story, while it may take five or ten chapters or more to do a proper job of wrapping up a complex trilogy.

The two obvious problems are stopping too soon, and carrying on too long. On the whole, I tend to think that too little is better than too much. A reader who finishes a book wishing there’d been just a little bit more is a reader who is likely to come back for the next one; a reader who gives up with a bored sigh two pages before “The End” appears under the last line of text is a reader who is likely to avoid the next one like the plague. And it really hurts to discover that you have overshot the end of the story by two or six or ten chapters, and that you must therefore cut all that material. For most of us, it’s a lot easier and less painful to add a scene or a chapter than it is to cut one.

Nevertheless, most novels need a certain amount of post-climax wrap-up to be satisfying. A novel is a long haul, and many readers need to be eased out of it gently, so to speak. If it’s a complex novel or a multi-book series (trilogy, quadrology, innumerable-fat-books-a-la-Jordan/Martin-series), there are likely to be a bunch of subplots and loose ends that need wrapping up, because they couldn’t all be tied up neatly as part of the big climax. And since most novels follow the classic plot structure (a series of attempts by the protagonist to solve bigger and bigger problems, where each try ends with the protagonist in a worse situation than ever, until the very last one finally succeeds/fails for good), they need something at the end to reassure the reader that this time the protagonist finally pulled it off, and there isn’t some nasty surprise waiting to turn the “ending” into a cliffhanger.

And finally, this part of the story – the part between the climax/solution and “The End” on the last page – is about consequences. This is the part that leads a lot of writers astray, I think, because in a lot of books the consequence of the protagonist’s actions is that he/she moves on into a new life (or returns to an improved version of the old one). This looks and feels like a beginning – and it is. But it’s the beginning of a new and different and unrelated story. The writer is allowed to tell that story, of course, but in the next book. The bit that goes at the end of this book is the acknowledgement that things have changed.

For instance, one writer I know was working on an action-adventure of the sort in which the protagonist is a junior space officer, faces a crisis, succeeds while annoying the top brass, and is “rewarded” with the captaincy of the worst ship in the fleet, posted to the worst spot in the galaxy, as a way of getting rid of him. Naturally, he goes on to shape up his new command, defeat new enemies (and make more political ones), and so on.

The problem was that this novel was approaching half a million words and the writer couldn’t figure out how to cut it. But it didn’t need cutting; it needed splitting into the several books that it actually was. The writer had run right through the ending of his first book (which occurred a quite reasonable 100,000 words or so into the story) and on into the next. All he had to do was stop at the point where the hero was notified that he was being promoted and given a new ship, but before showing the rust-bucket full of misfits that was his new command.

Part of the difficulty here was that the writer was so caught up in the “show, don’t tell” advice that he thought he had to show the new command, which led directly into the next story, leaving him no good break point. But the other part was that after spending 100,000 words and many hours working on making the characters “feel real” and planning all the hero’s future adventures, the writer had made them too real in his own head. Real people’s lives rarely divide themselves up into neat episodes, and their stories don’t end until they’re dead.

The second reason too many wrap-ups drag on is that the writer is trying to give attention to every single subplot and character individually, one scene or chapter per subplot. This is as unwise as it is unnecessary, especially in a book with lots of characters and subplots. A lot of long goodbyes and subplot finishes don’t make these things seem more important; they make the scenes feel thin. It’s often more effective to pack two subplot resolutions and a couple what-these-characters-do-next into the same scene, and then do some summarizing, than to have four or five long scenes to show each character moving into his/her new life and another three or four to resolve subplots. Alternatively, a series of mini-scenes – a two-to-three-paragraph look in per character to hint at where they’re heading now – can be very effective for a complicated, cast-of-thousands book or series, as long as they’re mini-scenes.

Finally, a lot of writers keep going in search of the boffo ending line, sometimes whole chapters past wherever the story should have cut off. Don’t do this. Just don’t. It never ends well.

We are afraid of looking foolish; we are afraid of rejection; we are afraid of overreaching, of not knowing how, of getting it wrong, of not being good enough. We’re afraid of being broke, being taken advantage of, being stuck with something that turns out to be a bad deal. We’re afraid that the idea that seemed so brilliant a week or a month or a year ago is not brilliant at all, only nobody is quite willing to say so. We’re afraid that in choosing to write this story, we’re letting a much better one get away.

Fear is paralyzing. It affects everything: creativity, the mechanics of planning and working and sending things out, even the simple enjoyment of telling a story you really want to tell. Everything is suspended, like hitting a permanent “pause” button on life, because as long as one doesn’t move, none of the things one is afraid of can possibly happen.

But fear is a natural part of doing anything new. Everybody is nervous the first time they exercise a new skill, and triply so if they’re doing it in public. What a lot of folks don’t take into consideration is that for writers, every book is a new thing. Yes, we develop skills over the years, but they’re always being applied to a new story. “You’re only as good as your latest book” is an industry truism, and it’s just as scary a thought for bestselling veterans as it is for struggling mid-list writers and beginners.

I think that a lot of the problem stems from the difficulty of the balancing act all writers face. On the one hand, one must believe in the value and quality of one’s work, else one would never send it out. On the other hand, one must believe that there is room for improvement, or one will never get any better. It’s a teeter-totter, and when it gets out of whack, it’s all too easy to end up in a frozen panic.

The other problem is that writers have a difficult time trusting themselves. We know that the stuff we turn out isn’t perfect; if we didn’t realize that to begin with, our crit groups and friends and editors would straighten us out in a big hurry. We have to know that it’s not going to be perfect and do it anyway. And every so often, the teeter-totter tips and the fear goes up and we stop.

Getting past the fear happens in different ways for different writers at different times. I think the key is to recognize it and admit what’s going on. It’s a lot harder to make excuses about not writing when you’ve taken a long, hard look at yourself and admitted that really, you’re just scared to mess up. Support from friends is vital – the sort of friends who won’t simply dismiss the problem.

Experience helps, too. The first time I had to redo seven chapters of a manuscript, it took me a solid year (after I figured out that was what I needed to do) to sit down and start ripping the manuscript apart, because I was afraid that whatever I came up with instead was going to be even worse than what I already had. The second time, it took me a bit over eight months. The third time, it took about two weeks, and the enormous reduction in elapsed time was due entirely to the fact that I recognized the situation and the feeling, so that I could roll my eyes at myself and decide that it would be silly to waste all that time when I knew what I had to do, and that I was eventually going to do it.

Taking small steps, or even just zooming in on the details, can make a big difference. Yes, I’m afraid my novel won’t be any good, but right now, I just have to think about this one scene, this one paragraph, this one sentence. And then the next sentence…but not until I get to the next sentence.

Which is another part of the trick: setting the future aside. Because the future is what fear is all about – all the horrible things that might happen, that we might not be able to handle if and when they do. Some of them are inevitable – death, taxes, rejection – and there’s no point in worrying about what you can’t keep from happening. Other fears are phantoms. But the only thing any of us can actually do anything about is whatever we’re doing right now this minute.

Not writing a sentence because I’m afraid my novel will end up being terrible, I’ll look foolish, I’ll be rejected…well, that seems like an awful lot to load onto one measly sentence. Sometimes, it really is better to look at the small picture for a little while.

This doesn’t mean that the other characters and plotlines are unimportant; on the contrary, the complexity is what draws a lot of readers to multiple-viewpoint-and-plotline stories. But one of the ways that complex stories can (and often do) go wrong is when the writer forgets or misidentifies the main character and the central problem, and as a result, the climax of the story falls flat. This can completely wreck an otherwise excellent novel.

Some writers try to give the finish of each plotline equal emphasis, which would be fine if the reader is reading the plots as a series of independent novellas, each starring a different character. In a novel where the plots have been braided together, though, going this route spreads out and flattens the “big finish.” Instead of one peak moment and several lesser ones, there’s a saw-edged row of similar points, one after another, until the reader loses track of when the novel is really over and ends up feeling vaguely dissatisfied even though everything has been wrapped up, point by point.

Instead, what generally works better is to give the greatest emphasis (the most tense, dramatic, emotional scene) to the solution of the central problem. The more other problems and plotlines that can be tied in to finish at exactly this same time, in this same scene, the better. For instance, if the central problem is defeating the Evil Overlord of Galaxy Prime, the battle may also rescue the hostage from plotline #2, solve the romantic triangle of plotline #3, and give the heroine of plotline #4 the chance to finally overcome her phobia about spiders when she shoots the Overlord’s giant mutant spider pet, all in the same battle.

But the center of the battle is still defeating the Evil Overlord, and this is what determines the way most readers will see the book. If the Evil Overlord wins, or dies but takes the Main Character with him, then even if the hostage rescue, happy romance, and psychological healing are all wildly successful, the book will still generally be considered a tragedy. If the Main Character wins and survives, then several unsuccessful subplot endings will only make the book “gritty” or maybe “dark” or “realistic,” rather than a tragedy.

Sometimes, of course, there is no possible way for a subplot to be wound up during the grand finale. In a multiple-viewpoint book where one or more of the established point-of-view characters is not present at the big battle or great reveal, this is especially true. In this case, the question becomes what order the finishing-up scenes should happen in. If the writer is going for a big finish, the way he decides is based on what effect each scene and subplot wrap-up will have on the scene, the one that’s the solution to the central problem.

Most of the time, subplots that can’t finish up during the grand finale get wrapped up very quickly immediately after, so that there is little or no release of tension until after the main problem has been solved. Occasionally, though, wrapping up a subplot just before the main finish will add tension to the grand finale, especially if the wrap-up folds two apparently-independent subplots together. The hero’s search for his long-lost sister finishes…with the discovery that she is the hostage who needs rescuing. The traitor has finally been discovered…but he’s already given the Evil Overlord the security code to get through the shields.

The other mistake people sometimes make is giving the big finish scene to the wrong viewpoint character. This is really only of concern in a multiple-viewpoint novel, but it still happens more often than you’d think. The author gets so caught up in cycling through each character’s experience of the battle in short action bits that when the main character finally offs the Evil Overlord, that bit is shown from the point of view of one of the other characters who’s been watching, rather than from the main character’s viewpoint. If the writer has been doing a Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson thing from the start (where Holmes is clearly the main character, but Watson is always the viewpoint), then it’s fine, but if the main character has been a viewpoint, the writer needs a really powerful reason to deny him the POV in the big finish scene or it just won’t work very well.

In a word: closure.

At the end of the story, whether the heroine won or lost, she’s not going to get another chance to try.  The Evil Overlord is gone for good, the wedding is on (or off), the murderer has been discovered and arrested. There may be some loose ends, but the main thing is over and done with…whatever “the main thing” is for that particular story.

In order to achieve this, the story first has to provide a question that needs answering, or a problem that needs settling. Will the hero get the girl? Will the detective catch the murderer? Will the Evil Overlord get a date for the prom?  The ending is the moment that provides the answer, whether that answer is Yes, No, or even Maybe.

That may seem obvious, but a lot of the beginner stories I see fail to present a central problem or a main question, and as a result they have serious difficulty finding a point of closure. Mostly, they end up sort of petering out and stopping, and their authors agonize over their inability to write endings. But their problem isn’t really with their ending – the problem is that they never set up anything that could come to an end point. You can’t close a door if no one ever opened it in the first place. The only fix for this is to rewrite the piece around a problem or question, so that there’s something to answer and a way to end. So that it’s a story and not just an incident.

Other writers overshoot the end because they’re looking for the perfect boffo closing line. It’s lovely when one gets a boffo line to end on, but it doesn’t always happen…and it’s usually much more effective to stop at a reasonable point than it is to make readers slog on through pages or chapters of filler, waiting for a punch line. The flip side of this is writers who cut things off abruptly as soon as the main problem is solved, without providing any wrap-up validation (of which more anon).

Still other writers string their endings out – first the scene with the action climax, where the heroine kills the dragon; then a scene for the big revelation, where the hero tells her he’s not her long-lost brother; then the emotional climax, where one of them proposes; then a scene for the climax of the secondary plot-thread, where the grand vizier runs off with the kitchen maid; and so on. Sometimes one does have to handle each thing separately, but it is often more effective if one can figure out how to bring as many of the threads together in one scene as possible, and tie them all up at once. Unlikely as it may be for the hero to propose in the middle of fighting the dragon while the vizier and kitchen maid try to sneak past the fray without getting killed, it’s often more convincing as a climax or ending scene (if, of course, one can pull it off). At the very least, the revelation and the proposal can usually go in the same scene.

The last mistake I see a good deal of is writers who don’t provide any wrap-up or validation after the big climax scene. Wrap-up is the bit where you let the reader find out how some of the minor subplots turned out, or what happened to other interesting characters while the hero and heroine were busy with the dragon, or where you tie up any loose ends that are still flapping around now that the main plot-problem is solved. Validation is something to let the reader know that it really is all over now; they really did succeed. In my standard plot outline, the ending is usually described as “there is a big fight and the good guys win; this is followed by awards and weddings, as appropriate.”  The “big fight and the good guys win” is the action climax; the “awards and weddings” is the validation. If you get a medal, it means you really did win…for this book, anyway.