writing the heart of your story (21 page)

Of course, having done my homework in advance and jotted notes down as the novel progressed regarding what I need at the end of the book, I don’t have that horrible trepidation of finishing. I’m always a bit sad to write the last line because by that point I’m so madly in love with my characters and the world I’ve created that I don’t want to go away.

I feel like Pokey (from the old Gumby cartoon show), who pops out of a book and zooms away on his weird horsie feet that slide along the floor. I hate the zooming-away part. Of course, I could write a follow-up novel and drench myself in another journey with those same characters, but alas, each book must end.

So your ending takes some serious thought and planning because you have a lot of elements you need to bring out and tie up (not just plot but emotional payoffs as well). I’m not talking here about writing the climax of your book, although in some cases a climax appropriately comes in the last scene, and sometimes on the last page, of a novel. If that’s the case with your novel, you have an even greater challenge because you’re combining both the climax and the ending at the same time, which can be tricky. Most books tend to work best if the climax comes enough before the last scene or two to allow the reader to do some processing (and the protagonist as well) of the climax—the gigantic event or moment you spent your entire book building to (which answers the MDQ and shows whether or not the protagonist reached her visible goal).

No Pressure—Just Do Everything on the List . . .

A. S. Byatt wrote: “We are driven by endings as by hunger.” No pressure, right? How about some more pressure? Here’s what you should believe (and strive to accomplish with your ending):

* Endings should be unforgettable

* Endings should satisfy both the intellect and the heart

* Endings must wrap up all the loose plot end

* Endings must clearly answer both the plot and spiritual MDQ

* Endings should highlight the novel’s theme

* Endings, if possible, should somehow connect to something in your opening scenes

* Endings, if possible, should bring back a repeated motif used throughout the book

* Endings should leave a significant take-home message or feeling that is powerful and lingering

You can see here that a lot of what needs to appear in your ending won’t be all that hard if you did a good job setting up those elements from page one. Readers want to feel a sense of completion at the end of your novel, that you’ve given them something, and that you delivered what you promised in the first scene.

Aim for That Unforgettable Ending

All that is a tall order! But just as with the first scene, with conscious effort and forearmed with knowledge, you can create a memorable ending. Not a whole lot of books have moved me with tremendous force in the last scene. I’ve read some great last scenes, and many endings are truly satisfying, some even lingering with me for days after I put the book down. But I do hunger for an incredible ending that will knock my socks off. Three books with endings that blew me away are Barbara Kingsolver’s
Animal Dreams
(I cried my heart out), Garth Stein’s
The Art of Racing in the Rain
(yep, cried even harder, but in a gloriously happy way), and Marquez’s
One Hundred Years of Solitude
(which had me gasping and delirious over how he wrapped everything he set up on the last page!). Don’t you want to create that kind of response in your readers when they read your last pages? I do!

Endings that Ruin Your Novel

Have you ever read a great book that carries you all the way to the end, and then the ending is so disappointing you feel cheated? I’ve felt that way many times, and usually it’s because the ending doesn’t fit the theme and story, or the characters behave so contrary to the way they been portrayed that I just don’t believe it. On some occasions the author has been promising certain things, building up my anticipation, but when the moment comes, she breaks her promise and the ending falls flat.

I wonder if authors sometimes write these kinds of endings because they think they will sell more books or add more drama. One book that comes to mind (sorry if this offends anyone) is
The Horse Whisperer
, which I really did enjoy a lot. The premise and story line were great, the conflict throughout was believable, and the characters were engaging and full-dimensional. That is, until the ending. I suppose Robert Redford (who optioned, starred in, and directed the movie, from what I understand) disliked the ending too, for in the movie he came up with a new ending that really did work and was believable. I’m glad he did. I had one of those moments where I wanted to throw the book across the room while screaming, “Oh come on! You’ve got to be kidding.”

Keep Your Characters in Character

If you haven’t read the book, what develops as the main thread of the story is a basic plot type. You have a woman (Annie) torn deciding between two men. She can either stick with her husband (Robert), whom she doesn’t feel close to anymore, or go after the cowboy hunk (Tom), whom she’s been spending a little too much time with. Nicolas Evans, the author, makes Tom an intriguing character. Without going into great detail about the plot, Tom is a man secure in himself, kind, principled, but very level-headed. He is not brash, emotional, or given to delusions of grandeur or lunacy. Yet, when the time comes for Annie to choose between the two men, instead of letting her make that choice herself, he forces her hand in a ridiculous act of self-sacrifice—letting a wild mustang kill him (yes, kill him!) in order to take the pressure of deciding off poor Annie. Okay, how many sane and respectable people do you know would step out in front of a car to die in order to help someone make a decision about their love life? Sorry, it’s just not believable.

Explosions Just Might Blow Up Your Book

Which brings me to the point. Don’t come up with some explosive, fabulous, shocking ending to your book that is not in total harmony with your story. You make your ending dramatic by giving it impactful meaning for your protagonist. Do you get that? It doesn’t have to be a big moment at all. In fact, some of the best novels end with a powerful, poignant, subtle moment that is quiet and understated. And yet because of the impact on the protagonist, it is huge.

I love
The Thirteenth Tale
by Diane Setterfield. Setterfield in this debut novel gives us a strong and terrific ending, but not much at all “happens.” The protagonist has fallen asleep in a chair while watching over the famous author she’s been interviewing over a period of months and wakes to find she’s died. That’s not quite the last scene, but the book ends with a whisper not a bang. Why is it so amazing? All the themes, secrets, clues, and motifs that Setterfield wove throughout the book come together at the end, as any good mystery should. Her themes are death, loss, identity, twins, reconciliation, truth—to name some. It’s no surprise it hit the NY Times best-seller list as #1 only a week after its release. (And surely the beautiful writing and gripping plot had a lot to do with that.)

As a huge fan of motifs, I was so drawn to her early setting up of the twin theme, as the reader learns right at the beginning that the protagonist, Margaret, accidentally discovered she’d had a twin sister at birth she never knew about and who had died. There are lots of plot elements having to do with twins throughout (a big part of the story), but this little fact becomes a motif that pops up here and there, and then comes fully formed at the end in a poignant manner. If you haven’t read this book, I highly encourage you to do so. This is a great example of a novel that shines from page one to the end.

The Ending Serves the Plot

All this is to say, you need to have the ending of your novel serve your plot. It’s where you bring to the spotlight all the reasons you wrote the story and all the passionate things you feel, which you infused along the way. Don’t get gimmicky at the last minute—get authentic. Speak from the heart and let that be what drives the writing of your ending. Let the reader see (show it, don’t tell it) how your protagonist has changed and what she’s learned.

The Inevitable Ending You Know Is Coming

As contradictory as this might sound, endings in novels need to seem inevitable without being predictable. When your reader finishes the book , she should feel that this was the only way it could have ended. Everything has led up to this finale, and it plays out perfectly. This isn’t predictability. You don’t want readers thinking they knew exactly what was going to happen and are bored as they hurriedly flip through the last pages of the book.

Recently I read a couple of award-winning sci-fi novels that were really pretty good until about the last fifty pages. I found myself starting to skim through the inevitable spaceship battles and the endings—to the point that I didn’t really read the last chapters. Such a difference from Orson Scott Card’s masterpiece
Ender’s Game
, considered one of the all-time greatest sci-fi books written (and I agree). The surprise twist at the climax and the completely unexpected ending blew me away. Yet, I could say it was the best ending for the book, and entirely unpredictable.

Inevitable but Predictable?

It’s okay for readers to know what is going to happen (boy gets girl, Frodo destroys the ring), but they don’t know how. You want enough surprises and twists that the reader is thrilled, but you don’t want them throwing the book across the room upset that your ending makes no sense. One writing instructor calls the ending a “debriefing.” I like to think of it as a camera pull-back in a mental way. This is where the protagonist shifts her focus from the small scope of the events in the climax to the larger purview of processing what she just went through, the decision she made, the changes she experienced, and who she is now. It’s as if her gaze is wider and deeper as she looks at her new place in the story with better vision and understanding. There is a sense of an “I see now and I understand” feel.

Reduce to the Bare Essence

I mentioned this line earlier: “Get in quickly; get out quickly.” There should be a sense of boiling everything down to its purest essence. Every word of dialog, every line of description, should truly count. The end is no place for excessive narration, pontification, explanation. This is where you show a memorable moment with your character, a short but important one. Think of a dramatic play in which the narrating character sums up the story (I’m picturing Hamlet) after all has been said and done. You don’t want to do this exactly—jumping in as the author and summing up the story they just read—but you do want to give the feeling that things are being wrapped up.

In
Conundrum
, after my protagonist, Lisa, learns a shocking truth (big plot twist/surprise) about her long-dead father, whom she has been trying to learn about throughout the course of the novel, she sits in her living room on New Year’s day (hinting at new beginnings, as she is also, finally, pregnant—another new beginning). I bring in some of the motifs I’ve been using in the book, phrases and ideas used in important places that hold a lot of meaning for her, so as she reflects on where she is, what she’s learned, how she now feels, and what she hopes for the future, it all plays out in a few short paragraphs, reprinted below:

A great sigh broke loose from inside me. I had come to the end of my father’s story; I had navigated this convoluted maze and now where did that leave me? What had compelled me, those months ago, to uncover the clues to his death? Some crazy notion that I could help Raff? Where had that come from?

Perhaps my buried memories of my father, a man who had imprinted his goodness and love on my heart so long ago, had nudged me toward truth. Toward a need to vindicate him somehow, clear his name of the false labels slapped upon him: cowardly, suicidal, heartless. I had supposed that if I searched for him, searched hard, I could find him. And I did. At least, I believed I did.

It struck me that I had no idea where my father was buried. In Los Angeles somewhere? Or would his family have buried him in New York? I made a mental note to call my uncle Samuel and ask. I was long overdue to pay my respects. Although, my father seemed more buried in my heart than in some cemetery plot.

Jeremy came into the living room and sat beside me. He looked out the window at the winter morning, at the garden that lay dormant, the rose bushes cut back, leafless, stunted. I gazed at the alders across the street, their spindly bare arms outstretched to the heavens. They seemed to be yearning for spring.