Does Your Novel Just…Stop? What Makes a Good Ending

By Janice Hardy

Your novel’s ending will have more impact than everything that came before it.

Some writers have troubles with beginnings, or more commonly, middles, but for me, it’s always been endings.

I tend to rush them once I reach the book’s climax, and summarize what happens instead of dramatizing scenes to the big finish. Then I have to rewrite those last three or four chapters several times before I get them right.

There are two reasons for this—impatience and story fatigue.

I reach a point where I’m tired of planning and want to move onto the writing. When I’m drafting it, I hit another wall of fatigue, where I’m so ready for it to be over and I rush past the ending I didn’t develop enough in the first place.

5 Common Problems With Endings

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Your ending is the whole point of your book.

This is the last post in my mini-series on common problems in beginnings, middles, and endings. Today, we’ll take a look at common problems with endings.

When a reader picks up your novel, they do so because something about the blurb made them think "This sounds like a great book." It might be the premise, the voice, the setting, or even a character, but something intrigued them enough to give it a try. How you end the novel and resolve the story will determine whether or not that reader raves about the novel the next day, or forgets about it before the week is over.

Oh yeah, endings have that kind of power. 

Because the ending is the moment readers have been waiting for the entire book (no pressure). It resolves the core conflict of the novel and puts the protagonist up against the antagonist, which is why the most common problem with endings is that they don't live up to that promise.

The only thing tougher than an ending is the middle. Except for the beginning.

Writing Your Novel Backward Might Be the Secret to Success

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

It’s hard to plot a novel if you don’t know what problem it’s trying to solve.

Creating plots has always been easy for me, but endings are my nemesis. I usually have a general sense of what they are before I start a novel, but far too often, I have no clue about the specifics on how my conflict is resolved. My outline might say, Nya needs to “stop the bad guy using her shifting ability.” Grace needs to “find her father.” Chip needs to “solve the murder.”

Vague as they are, my endings at least give me a direction to work toward, which is sometimes all you need to start writing. I might not know how my protagonist solves their problem, but I know what generally needs to be done and where the plot is headed.

Not all writers are this lucky. Some—maybe even you—have no idea where their story is going, because they don’t know what “the end” looks like.

NaNoWriMo Prep: Planning Your Novel’s Ending

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

We now come to the final installment of the annual NaNo prep articles. Hope everyone going for the 50,000 words in November are just about ready to go!

Getting to “The End” of a novel is pretty satisfying, both as a reader and a writer, but there’s a lot more pressure to get there for the writer. There are many things that need to happen--plots and subplots to wrap up, and those pesky character arcs to fulfill. And then there’s the whole “satisfying resolution” to worry about.

The ending is the last 25% of the novel, so for the NaNo folks, to meet your 50,000-word goal, that's another 12,500 words. At least one of those final chapters is going to be your wrap up, though that can be a much smaller chapter. There’s a good chance that you won’t know all the specifics about your ending in the planning stage, so don’t worry. Ideas and situations will develop over the course of the novel that will help you flesh the ending out. Even if you do know exactly how the ending will unfold, you might find deeper meanings or ways to make it resonate more once that first draft is written.

Twelve Story Ending Twists That Don't Work

By Rayne Hall, @RayneHall

Part of the Focus on Short Fiction Series

JH: Some twists have been written to death. Rayne Hall shares 12 endings you should avoid.

Certain short story endings will almost inevitably lead to rejection. What are they, and why should you avoid them?

1. "And then I woke up. It was only a dream."

You've created an exciting story, and your readers sit on the edge of their seat to await the outcome... and then you reveal that none of it happened. What a let down!

In my role as an anthology editor and contest judge, I've received quite a few of those, mostly from novice writers who are submitting their first stories. Other editors and writing contests judges are fed up with them, too. Often, when I chat with editors and judges, one of them says, "Today I got a big batch of 'it was only a dream' submissions," and the rest of us just roll our eyes and groan in sympathy.

Pulling Levers in the God Machine

By Spencer Ellsworth, @spencimus

Part of The How They Do It Series

JH: A deus ex machina ending usually kills a novel, but a little "god manipulation" is common in some genres—and readers are fine with that. Spencer Ellsworth share thoughts on how much readers will accept when it comes to the "unexplained win."

Spencer Ellsworth is the author of The Great Faerie Strike from Broken Eye Books and the Starfire space opera trilogy from Tor. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and three children, and would really like a war mammoth if you know a guy.

Website | Twitter | Goodreads

Take it away Spencer…

Story Structure: How The Wrap Up Works in a Novel

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

The wrap up is the final goodbye for the novel, and your last chance to leave readers with a good impression.

There’s a series* I’ve read several times, because the wrap up has such an emotional punch that it pops into my head at least once a year and won’t leave. This is not a mega-bestselling series, and it’s not perfect. And while it’s fun, it also has issues and does plenty of things I could use as examples of what not to do in a novel.

Yet I keep reading it. And not just one book, but five. All to get to that ending.

It’s not the climax that gets me, though that’s exciting. In fact, the ramp up to the climax is also emotion-ladened and always makes me cry. It’s what the characters do in that final scene and why they do it that makes me come back to this series every year or two.

It’s heroic. And uplifting. And sad. And offers a sense that the world is a better, safer place now.

Story Structure: How The Climax Works in a Novel

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

The climax resolves the plot problem and makes readers glad they picked up the novel.

There’s a popular series* with a climax that made me so furious I stopped reading that author. Until that moment, I’d devoured all eight books, loved them, and in that last 10% of the final book, the author had the protagonist make a decision that invalidated the entire series and made me go from “Yes, I want you to win!” to “You don’t deserve the victory what the heck were you thinking???”

I was livid. I had to stop reading and call my niece (we were reading the series together) and we hashed out how awful this ridiculous decision was. I gritted my teeth and dived back in to finish it, and then watched in horror as the story I’d loved dissolved into a pointless, deus ex machina ending.

This is not the climax you want for your novel.

4 Essentials of Unforgettable Endings

By Laurence MacNaughton, @LMacNaughton

Part of The How They Do It Series

JH: A solid ending not only satisfies readers, but makes them eager to reader your next novel. Laurence MacNaughton shares four tips on how to write unforgettable endings.

It's possible that more writers struggle with the ending of a story than the blank page at the beginning. The good news is, writing a terrific ending is easier than you think. Just follow these four steps.

1. Put the main character in the driver's seat.

This is potentially the best thing you could do to wrap up your story: make sure your main character is the one who makes the ending happen.

Writing the Ending: Tying Up All the Loose Ends

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Before we dive in today, just a heads up that I’m over at Anne R. Allen’s blog sharing thoughts on The Lure of the Writing Template: Why Filling in the Blanks Doesn’t Work. Come on over and say hello.

The ending of a novel is seldom just one moment. It takes a bit of juggling to get all the storylines tied up without stealing attention from the climax.

Even when we know our novel’s ending, there are usually multiple storylines in that story that also need to be wrapped up. Major subplots, secondary character arcs, small side plots that need resolving or readers will wonder about them. Everything needs to come together at the end in ways that support the story—not send it in six different directions.

Writing Great Endings -- And Not Just the Big One

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy


Since the ending is the last thing readers read, it often determines how much they like the novel. A fantastic story with a lousy ending can ruin a book, just as a ho-hum novel with an amazing ending can have readers raving. But don’t forget—scenes have endings, too, as do chapters, and of course, the ending of the novel itself. If we pay attention to all our endings, we stand a much better chance at keeping readers happy from page one.

It’s Over: Getting Readers to the End and Making Them Glad They Came

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

An ending can make or break our novels, because they answer the story questions we posed to hook our readers in the first place. If that answer isn't satisfying, the book won't be satisfying. 

Let's look at some ways to craft the right ending for our stories.

Make Readers Want to get to the Ending

In order to care about how a story ends ends, readers have to first care about the characters and the problem at hand. To do this we:

1. Give them a problem/mystery/question they want to know the answer to
2. Make the journey to get there interesting, and reward them with bits of information and new mysteries about that problem along the way
3. Give them characters interesting enough to make them invest time in them

Anatomy of a Showdown

By Paul Anthony Shortt, @PAShortt

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: One of the most looked-forwarded-to moments in a novel has got to be the showdown between hero and villain. It's the payoff of the entire novel, and for many readers, it determines how much they like the book. Paul Anthony Shortt visits the lecture hall today to share some tips on what goes into a great showdown.

A child at heart who turned to writing and roleplaying games when there simply weren’t enough action figures to play out the stories he wanted, Paul Anthony Shortt has been writing all his life.

Growing up surrounded by music, film and theatre gave him a deep love of all forms of storytelling, each teaching him something new he could use. When not playing with the people in his head, he enjoys cooking and regular meet-ups with his gaming group.

He lives in Ireland with his wife Jen and their dogs, Pepper and Jasper. Their first child, Conor William Henry Shortt, was born on July 11th, 2011. He passed away three days later, but brought love and joy into their lives and those of their friends. The following year, Jen gave birth to twins, Amy and Erica. Their fourth child, Olivia, was born in January, 2014.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indie Bound

Take it away Paul...

Writing the Bittersweet Ending

By M.K. Hutchins, @mkhutchins

Part of the How They Do It Series

While many novels end in sunshine and rainbows, not every story has to have a happily ever after. It's often more realistic to incur a loss with the win. Please help me welcome M.K. Hutchins, who's here today to chat with us about endings that aren't always perfect, and how to write one that offers the bitter as well as the sweet.

M.K. Hutchins has had short fiction appear in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show and Daily Science Fiction. She studied archaeology at BYU, which gave her the opportunity to compile histories from Maya glyphs, excavate in Belize, and work as a faunal analyst. She blogs about books, board games, and fiction-inspired recipes at mkhutchins.com. Drift, her debut novel, releases May 15th.

Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Tu Books

Take it away M.K...

Handling Cliffhanger Scene Endings With Multiple POVs

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

In the good old days of movies serials, the story would end with the hero literally hanging off the edge of a cliff. If you wanted to know what happened, you had to come back for the next episode of that serial. A great way to get folks to come to the movies, and even a great way to get readers to turn the page, but this doesn't work quite the same with multiple points of view (POV).

Tying Up Loose Ends: Plot Threads

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Lots of good questions this week, so let's finish with...

How do you approach tying up plot threads for your trilogy? It can be difficult to do for a single book. Doing it for a trilogy must be maddening.

You have no idea. There were times I was ready to rip my hair out.

I approached it much like I approach a stand alone novel. The trilogy had a core conflict that spanned the series, and all my plots had to connect to that core conflict in some way. Tying them up had to either help or hinder my protag.