I Can't Write Endings!

Do you know what it is specifically that is giving you a problem? Is it sorting out how to resolve the conflict, or just losing the desire to write it?

It might be worth sitting down and outlining the end. Or maybe listing different possible outcomes and ticking off what works and what doesn't. It might get you brainstorming in the right way. I tend to talk things out with friends when I get stuck on a plot point, and a couple of times they've given me great ideas, or at the very least it gets me thinking about how to do it and usually helps a lot.

In your endings, does it seem like the worst possible thing is likely to happen to your MC? That might be something to look at.

(I'm really bad at endings too, though.)

Usually when I write a story I think it's going to end right there when I finish the manuscript, when I get into the standard 40th chapter, but then when I finish the 400th page of the manuscript I realize the story hasn't really ended. Say what? The only story that I finished in one book volume was Out of Control, (title) published by CreateSpace right now.

I know this might sound a little trite, but take some time to analyze the endings of books that you enjoyed, even to the extent of outlining the books so you can understand the structure.

It might be something that will help to take a little break from as well. I know for me, it helps a lot to set it aside and then just think about it when I'm going for walks and things. Usually something will click as not working. I also know that for me, 90% of the time it turns out to be a tone issue. I'm not sure if that's true for you as well, but it took me ages to figure that out, and now when I have a problem I know to look for that specifically. It's not something that would have ever occurred to me before.

It could be, too, that there's a problem with the ending you're setting up not quite meshing with what you already have. Something else you could try is going back a couple of chapters and rereading what you have and trying to follow the characters along. It might be that they end up somewhere a little different from where you initially expected.

This sorta thing is really difficult, but I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Last manuscript I wrote, I got through about 30 chapters then couldn't for the life of me think of what the ending would be. I started again at the beginning, working on the second draft and forgot about it for a while while I polished up what I already had. One day while watching tv (Buffy, I believe) the perfect ending all of a sudden came to me.

An outline is one option but maybe you just need to take the pressure off and not worry about it for a bit. Try different things but don't kill yourself stressing over it. It'll work itself out.

What questions were asked in the first chapter? Your climax should answer them.

What characters were present in the first chapter? They should be the ones involved in the climax.

If you can't for the life of you figure out the ending, consider you have the wrong first chapter.

And an outline wouldn't hurt....

What Uncle Jim said.

Could it be the problem comes from 'pantser-style' writing? The writer goes along . . 'This happened and then this happened and then this other interesting thing happened . . .' Which is all very well, if the writer has a general idea where he's going.

If the writer isn't thinking about how each scene fits into an overall story, he can put together 80,000 words of incident -- cool in themselves -- that don't built up to a final anything in particular.

It takes most of a whole manuscript to set up the decisive action that resolves conflict and shakes the characters to the soles of their boots. If the ending hasn't been prepared for . . . I can see it would be hard to pull off at the last minute.

William Goldman (more likely paraphrased than quoted):

Problems with act 5 are almost always the result of problems in act 1.

Lots of what some people refer to as "pantsters" (and I they they should find as slighting a reference to people who plan every last thing in a novel including when someone sneezes) write endings just fine.

It is more likely to be a fault in the story telling. Doesn't your story have an end? If so, why not? That is what you are supposed to be doing, not writing down a string of events.

gothicangel said:

It's happened again!

It's a running theme, I get so close to the end and I run out of steam, the ending isn't working!

What's wrong with me?

Maybe it's time to surrender and write an outline?

Click to expand...

I never plan my endings. A character is in pursuit of an objective. When the character either completes the objective or is completely unable to, the story is over. I only tackle one objective at a time until I get to the last straw and hopefully when the dust settles, the camel's back is broken.

However, when I wind up exposing something that's not working, more often than not it's because of a story beat that preceded it is out of joint or I wound up not capitalizing on an opportunity that is a more organically accurate expression of the narrative's solution. The beats that aren't as full as they need to be when it comes to expressing the essence or theme or whathaveyou wind up making the beats that follow it implode.

Kind of like lighting a dud firecracker. Can't tell it's not a true firecracker. You light the wick. The wick sparks with the best of them but in the end, she fizzles, lets out a poof of smoke, does the awkward silence thing and then leaves you afraid to approach her even though she's dead.

Sometimes finding the problem depends on how tight the beats are.

What's the character's objective? What's she got to do in order to accomplish that goal? If all that's clear then you should be able to mine all those beats for that thing that binds those together. If you packed your dynamite well then all the threads you light on fire should all lead to this last thread. See which threads didn't show up and hunt them down, force them to answer for their nonattendance. They've no excuse.



I feel your pain. It's supposedly part of the fun.

Just as a beginning doesn't have to include explosions, battles, car chases, or other in-your-face action scenes, neither does a climax. But as Uncle Jim said, there should be some form of circularity where the motivations, desires, and/or actions of the characters are impacted by or impact the issues or events that opened the story.

gothicangel said:

Maybe it's time to surrender and write an outline?

Click to expand...

Well, maybe not. If you don't play well with outlines in the first place, it's probably not going to give the help you're looking for. I've tried outlines myself to try to find fixes to problems, and they haven't worked. The one thing I've learned is to identify what the problem is. It is terribly easy to look three steps above the problem or to look at the symptoms and not identify what the actual problem is. Then all the fixes won't work because the problem is still there. Especially considering that you said it's happened before, there's something specific you're either doing or not doing. That's what you need to figure out.

I have trouble with endings, too. Some of it is simply how I write. I need to be a little vague with the endings--that just works best for my creative process. It does create headaches, but if I try to add structure like planning out the ending, it just doesn't work for me. I'm, okay with that because a vague ending is easy to fix with some thought.

But I also tend to leave things until I get there (i.e., characters are chasing after a weapon for the entire book, but I don't even think about what it does until I get to the end when it gets used). This is the one I'm not okay with because it tends to require major revision throughout the whole book. So I have to keep in the back of my mind that I pay attention to them.

What's an ending?

job said:

Could it be the problem comes from 'pantser-style' writing? The writer goes along . . 'This happened and then this happened and then this other interesting thing happened . . .' Which is all very well, if the writer has a general idea where he's going.

If the writer isn't thinking about how each scene fits into an overall story, he put together 80,000 words of incident -- cool in themselves -- that don't built up to a final anything in particular.

It takes most of a whole manuscript to set up the decisive action that resolves conflict and shakes the characters to the soles of their boots. If the ending hasn't been prepared for . . . I can see it would be hard to pull off at the last minute.

Click to expand...

I agree with this as it gets a lot of us in trouble.

I find that my rough draft / idea sketch is more or less a brain storm of cool stuff. Then when I get to the end it becomes apparent to me what the kick ass ending should be. And then, once I have that, I go back and start over and set everything up so that the ending falls into place.

But the MAIN thing that I do is that I focus on the conflict and emotional core of my story/characters. If you have a good grasp of the conflict, then the ending is merely resolving the conflict in an exciting way. That's all.

The conflict should be building building building, like a pressure cooker and then BOOM!!! climax and resolution.

However, if you don't have a tight seal on your 'real' conflict and don't understand the conflict, then your pressure cooker will have leaks and the conflict will never really build up to the level of BOOM!!! it will just meander and end with a sigh.

Ditto on the above advice to study some of your favorite book endings. I also like to look at movie endings.

good luck

Mel...

Look at the opening balance of your story. How are things in the story world? Let's say, Ann and Bill are a happily married couple, they live in a big house and have a son.

Then try shadowing that- what would be the opposite? Ann and Bill are not a happily married couple, they don't live in the big house and they no longer have a son.
Choose what you could keep out of the opening balance and shadow the rest. This at least gives you a basic ending, even if you change track afterwards.

double post

• I start writing the climax and it feels more like an anti-climax. I suspect it is something to do with the final confrontation of protaganist and antagonist. I don't think it's strong enough.

When you come to the climax it should have reached the point of all or nothing, with the protagonist, and the reader, pretty sure it’s going to be nothing unless something unexpected happens. His/her choices should have narrowed till the only ones left are to run or face what must be done. There must also be some overriding reason why running isn’t an option, in spite of the fact that anyone with sense would say, “I’m out of here (if it hasn’t reached that level you’re not ready for the climax).

Often, the climax involves the protagonist changing, and performing some act, or taking a stand, he or she would have refused to do at the beginning, thus sealing the growth and change of the protagonist.

You should have a good idea of what chance act/happening/situation will allow your protagonist to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by changing the odds to favor the protagonist achieving the win demanded by poetic justice (usually because the hero remained steadfast to his/her ideals, and was willing to accept defeat for those ideals).

Somewhere in the list, above is your missing element.

Also: has the story to that point been a series of scenes in which the conflict and the stakes continued to rise while options were shrinking at the same rate? If not, you may have written a chronicle, and they, inherently have no climax, other than within each scene/story.

Hope this helps

It's not just story structure, though. Most stories are fairly predictable, even mysteries. You may not know "who done it," but you know that somebody did it and that at the end, we'll know who. It takes skill to reveal the "end" in an entertaining fashion and to provide the denouement that will give the reader satisfaction.

You can't have a proper ending without proper structure, but structure alone doesn't get it done.