Why Endings Can Be Predictable

Endings have become hard for me. I kept re-writing "Colonel Tom" because I did not think it hit the right note, that this is not how my character after enduring and surviving losses in her life would end. I think I have found it finally - making clear she tells off death and dies with a smile, one last defiance of death. My latest, "Dilemma of Basketball", drew the criticism from KH of coming to a dead end, without any clarity. I looked at it and changed the last paragraph with the hope of making the ethical choice and failure clearer. Still waiting to hear back from KH on if I pulled it off.

C.S. Lakin published Why Story Endings Are Often Predictable – And That’s Okay on her Live Write Thrive blog. I found this point hit home for me:

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 that 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 frIf your novel is done, think about a motif or line from the first chapter that speaks to your theme (or put one in) and see how you can work it into your ending. Distill your ending down to just a few paragraphs, and have your protagonist reflect on how she’s now looking at the world with new sight, after what she’s gone through. Take out every unnecessary word, any distracting description, that is not locking in on that moment.om 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.

Here is another point, one that I sort of picked up from Joyce Carol Oates, but I had not thought of a motif:

If your novel is done, think about a motif or line from the first chapter that speaks to your theme (or put one in) and see how you can work it into your ending. Distill your ending down to just a few paragraphs, and have your protagonist reflect on how she’s now looking at the world with new sight, after what she’s gone through. Take out every unnecessary word, any distracting description, that is not locking in on that moment.

While writing this, The Great Gatsby came to mind. Does anyone expect Gatsby not to die? But does not the ideas of a boat bating back into the past shock the conscience, or does it sum up the feelings we have towards the characters?

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