The Question of Closure

“If you’re having trouble with your ending, look at your beginning.” – Anonymous

One of the most important elements of a story is a satisfying ending, and a satisfying ending almost always involves closure. You see it in the terminology we use to talk about the structure of endings: you have the climax, the wrap-up, the denouement, the validation. And of course, the term closure itself.

“Closure” is defined as a firm, unambiguous answer to a question…but you don’t get a satisfying story by answering any old question that happens to have cropped up in the last two pages. What the reader wants is the answer to the central story question, which generally has something to do with the characters and the situation they’ve gotten themselves into.

And while the full depth and breadth of the problem may have unfolded over the course of the entire novel, the seeds of the problem are there in the first chapter. If they aren’t – if the first two or three chapters present one problem, and the entire rest of the story deals with a completely different one, then either the story ran off the rail somewhere around Chapter Four, or else the author started it in the wrong spot and needs to ditch the first three chapters and just tell the main story.

Quite often, the fundamental problem with a story’s ending is that it provides an answer…but not to any of the questions the reader thought were the important ones. We’ve spend the whole story wondering whether George will marry Jane or run away with Jennifer, and then suddenly the last three chapters are about keeping the ninjas from assassinating the Emperor. The big confrontation with the ninjas is splendidly dramatic and George getting a medal for saving the Emperor makes for a nice validation…but it all comes out of nowhere and doesn’t address the romantic triangle that the reader thought was the center of the story. Even if George proposes to Jane on the last page, it feels unsatisfying, because not enough attention is being paid to what the reader thought was the center of the story.

Sometimes, the problem is that the writer didn’t get their real question down on the page. This is especially easy to do when it is so obvious to the writer that the protagonist has issues with her parents that none of the issues ever get into the story, so when the climax turns into a big family reconciliation scene, the reader is left going “Huh?” Other times, the author doesn’t realize that they’ve presented a question to the reader – it’s self-evident to the author that George is in love with Jane, so Jennifer isn’t even a minor distraction.

Still other times, the author doesn’t find a particular aspect of the story interesting (perhaps because it’s too familiar, or because it’s not the part of the story that gave them the idea), and therefore ignore any and all story questions related to that part of the story. I’ve seen several novels in which the author gave the protagonist a small-town background similar to the one the author was desperate to escape, and never noticed (until the crit group or the reviewers pointed it out) that the main character had a choice to make, between their home town and the fantasy world where they were a hero, and that that choice was not an obvious or easy one.

And sometimes, the author has taken the advice to “know where you are going before you start” a little too much to heart. They began with a plan to work toward a particular ending, and they stick to that plan, and never notice that other aspects of the story have become more important. It’s as if Tolkien had decided to write a sequel to The Hobbit focusing on Bilbo, and managed to get halfway through The Fellowship of the Ring still thinking that he was telling the story of Bilbo’s adjustment to his retirement. So they’re all in Rivendell, and the big climax of the story is when Bilbo offers to take the Ring to Mount Doom, but they turn him down so he can stay happily retired. The End….What?

The story question is unfolded and developed in the plot, but the seeds of it need to be there from very early in the story. You don’t get satisfying closure by answering a question that has never been asked. The writer doesn’t have to know what the question is, right from the start – many don’t, especially seat-of-the-pants writers – but by the time the writer gets to the end, they need to be able to look back and see that they’re answering the right question, the one the readers have cared about since the opening. (And if the writer knows it’s the right question, but there’s no trace of it in the opening chapters…well, sometimes the way you fix the ending is by rewriting the beginning.)

The way in which the ending provides closure – the answer to the story question – depends on exactly what kind of question it is. Sometimes, the question is an achievement: Will the hero slay the dragon? Will the detective catch the murderer? Other times, the question is a choice: Will George choose Jane or Jennifer? Will Kimberly choose a career in music, or become a lawyer the way her family wants? Still other times, the answer has to be found: Will they discover a cure for the plague in time? And sometimes, the answer is an internal epiphany (or lack of one): Will Jack realize that his workaholic behavior is driving his family away before it is too late?

Often, there are several possible levels to the central question, as well as a host of minor questions (subplots, some of which can be large and important-looking). Subplots don’t need to be tied up quite as neatly to get to a satisfying ending – in other words, they don’t all need complete closure. When in doubt, one can use this as a test: if the writer left this particular issue open, would the story still come to a satisfying conclusion? If the answer is yes, it’s probably a subplot; if no, it’s probably either the main story question or else closely enough related that you can’t realistically finish up one without the other.