How to have the perfect ending to your novel.
Where does it lead to? what is the theme? how does it all wrap up with meaning?
“All’s well that’s ends well.” It’s not only a title of a play but it’s the basis of every story ever told. Your novel’s success all comes down to the last line.
In this blog, we’ll be looking at How to have the perfect ending to your novel…
HOW TO HAVE THE PERFECT ENDING TO YOUR NOVEL
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Ask any writer and they’ll say the hardest part of any story is the last line. It should take you the same amount of time to write the last line as it did to write the whole book. Why? Because it captures the theme, the very meaning. It sums up the book. Leaving the reader feeling satisfied. Chances are if you finished a long novel and didn’t feel anything it’s because the ending didn’t capture the theme in the final paragraph.
Look back at the greatest books written, chances are the last chapter, paragraph, line is powerful. Not just a throwaway line, but something that stays with you. Something you think about. It’s not luck that makes it happen, it’s the writer knowing the theme. Knowing what the book is about and capturing it with the last line.
EACH CHAPTER WILL BE JUSTIFIED
As a writer, your last chapter is where the good and bad guy finally meet, where one of them has to win. But as the writer, you have to ask why is the bad guy “bad?” Why is the good guy “good?” Why do they have to meet head to head? Are they random strangers battling each other because it’s the last chapter, or does it have deeper meaning? By knowing the answer you can have the whole novel written leading up to it. Each chapter will be justified, needed.
Basically, it’s like your moving backwards. You have the last scene and now you have to create scenes to justify the previous one. You need to give it power and meaning. Don’t want a story that wanders only to have the bad guy met up with the good guy at the end by chance. That will have no meaning to the reader.
IT WOULD HAVE NO MEANING TO THE READER
In the novel “Jaws” chief Brody had to be the one facing the shark at the end, everything was leading up to it. If Chief Brody was introduced in the last chapter it would mean nothing to the reader. By having him in the beginning as the police chief dealing with the townspeople and the battle over closing the beaches and being the one dealing with the shark attacks throughout gave the ending meaning.
Each scene in a novel moves towards the next one, there’s no such thing as a wasted, pointless scene. Everything is moving towards the ending. Each chapter marches towards the last line in the novel. You want the last line powerful so the novel will be powerful.
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ONE POINT
Check to see if the location of the final “confrontation” between good and evil have meaning? Why is the final “battle” happening in that location? Did you make it up at the last second or has the story been moving towards it? As though all roads are leading to one final point.
Writing a novel is like rewinding a movie. You see the credits, you see the final scene, you see the characters moving backwards from scene to scene until you get to the beginning. As a writer, you want to picture your novel rewinding. See the last page rewinding to the beginning. Does it make sense? Is each scene needed? Is a story being told? How is the last scene and first scene tied to one another?
WHY IS THIS SCENE HERE?
Everything you do in a novel is adding scenes to back up and justify the scene afterwards. There’s no such thing as a wasted scene. As a writer, you have to ask yourself why is this scene here? What does this lead to?
The last scene in “The Deer Hunter” we see the actors standing around singing “God Bless America.” That scene alone doesn’t mean much if that’s all you watch. But if you see the entire movie with all the scenes leading up to it, it makes a perfect ending. In the movie, we see the effects of what coming home from war does to people. The movie is about posttraumatic stress from a war. How you cannot go back to regular life. But in order for us to understand the changes we needed to see how they lived their lives before the war. How they got along in their small town.
In the beginning, they see a soldier sitting at a bar. The soon-to-be soldiers want to talk to him about how great the war is but they’re surprised by how the soldier does not want to talk, looking depressed. But after the lead actors come home from the war they to are at a bar not wanting to talk to anyone as well. The first half shows them living at home, the next half is them coming home from the war. There isn’t a wasted shot. Everything that happens in the first half lets us understand the second half, leading up to them singing “God Bless America.”
MOVE THE PLOT FORWARD OR REVEAL CHARACTER
All scenes need to do one of two things, move the plot forward or build character. We should never be “told” someone is bad or good we need scenes showing us someone is good or bad. Those scenes don’t move the plot forward but they are necessary for the reader to get to know the character. If two people are best friends don’t tell us they are best friends, show the reader they are.
Not all ending have to be happy. You can have a sad ending and still “all wells that ends well” applies. Because some stories need to end sadly. But it doesn’t mean the novel failed. Romeo and Juliet have a sad ending but it’s the right one. It couldn’t have ended any other way. Every scene led up to that final ending. “All’s well that ends well” doesn’t mean everyone has to be happy and laughing. It means the story has to end the only way it can. Be it sad or happy.
THERE’S NO EMOTIONAL CLOSER
Try not to have your novel’s last sentence be the ending of an action scene. (The good guy stopping the bad guy in a shot out.) There are two things that make up a novel, action and emotion. Action makes us turn the page but it’s the emotion we connect with and remember. If your novel ends on action it feels as though something is “missing.” It feels it ended too quickly without real resolution. Think of all the action movies that end right after the final action scene is over. The guns have stopped firing the bad guy is stopped and the hero is left standing only to have the credits role. This type of ending feels as though “it ended wrong.” There was no emotional closer to the characters.
But when you read “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” after the final confrontation between the hero and villain is finished there’s still countless pages left in the book for the emotional side of the book to have life. Because the book’s success wasn’t about “action” it was the “emotional connection of the characters”. Therefore ending it on action would’ve seemed “wrong.” But ending it an emotion felt “right.”
IT’S ABOUT EMOTIONAL CONNECTION
Each book in the Harry Potter series ends with an “all’s well ends well” feeling. The last book ends with the biggest “all’s well ends well” feeling. Proving the success of the book franchise isn’t about action but the emotional connection of the characters. Too many authors have tried to copy Harry Potter and put way too much focus on the action, living the reader not carrying about the characters.
Think of the book “The Godfather” one scene leads into another. Nothing is wasted; nothing is added for “no reason”. The ending has Michael looking like the devil in a dark suit in his office. But in the start he was nice and caring dressed in his military uniform at his sister’s wedding. Every scene in the book leads Michael from being compassionate to evil. By the time you get to the end, you see the full transformation. It was clear Mario Puzo knew what he was doing, working backwards, knowing the ending and creating scenes needed to make the last scene justified.
THEY WILL RECOMMEND YOUR BOOK
The theme philosophical questions, and meaning should be captured and addressed in the final scene. The reader may not know it, but as the writer, you are aware of how everything about your story, all the pages, all the chapters all comes down to the last line. That’s what you’re leading up to. All the chapters, all the events exist for that last scene in your book. It shouldn’t be a throwaway scene. The last scene has to have the greatest meaning. It will stay with the reader’s heart for a long time. It’s what makes a reader recommend your book to others.
The punch line in a joke is the most important part of a joke. Everything that happens in it leads up to it. It’s always at the end. It makes everyone laugh. Nothing is added that shouldn’t be there nor is anything left out. The only information told in a joke is what’s needed to make the ending funny. Your novel should be the same in the sense that everything that happens is all about the final line. Leading to an emotional powerful reaction.
you might be interested in these blogs…
THE PROBLEM WITH TWIST ENDINGS IN YOUR NOVEL
WHY THE MIDDLE OF YOUR STORY IS THE WEAKEST
IF YOU CAN TELL A JOKE YOU CAN WRITE A NOVEL
