This video is all about how to write a good ending to a story. Whether you are looking to be traditionally published or are writing picture books, the main key to writing a good ending is to be familiar with what your audience wants. We’ve also got you covered on writing endings for various genres—from romance to fantasy.

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How to Write a Good Ending Transcript

Hello. This is Mary Kole with Good Story Company. This video is all about how to write a good ending to a story. Now, there are many things to unpack here for people who are traditionally published or aspire to be traditionally published, as well as those who are doing indie publishing. So we'll get into all of that as we roll along in this video. And I think a lot of writers will get a lot of use out of it, because this advice can apply across age categories and across genres as well. To that end, you do have to when you're thinking about crafting your ending, have to be a little bit familiar with what your audience wants.

Now, in a picture book, that'll be a pretty good resolution to your story that's very, very satisfying and doesn't leave a lot of gray area open. With a story for older readers or with a genre story, you want to also pay attention to what your readers expect. For example, in romance, there is a strong expectation that the relationship will knit together at the end. And fantasy, which is usually series-driven, we'll talk about series in a bit, there is an expectation that there will be something left open for a potential series, and so on and so forth. So if you're a big reader in your own category that you're writing in, make sure you sort of start to internalize what your readers might expect in a book of that same genre or category as far as the ending goes.

I talk a lot about starting a manuscript. The reason being the beginning of a manuscript is very important for hooking readers, agents, and publishers. If you don't have a strong beginning to your project, not a lot of people are gonna get around to the ending. So it is always something that I recommend focusing on. That being said, the other side of the coin is I don't get to talk about endings that much. So when I talk about how to write a good ending to a story, that's pretty rare. Now, one of the core concepts that I like to introduce for endings is called the core emotional experience. This is something that I learned in my theater training, and it means basically the emotion that you want your reader to feel once they close the cover of your book. Now, it does go back to what's appropriate for your audience, for your target category. In picture book, for example, that tends to be a little bit more overtly message-driven, and so you will actually want your readers to feel like, "Hey, I can try something new." And you never wanna hit readers over the head. We'll talk about that in a second as well. But the expectation is there a little bit more that you will give your audience something to think about, something to sort of chew on once they're done reading the book.

As we age up towards a middle grade/young adult, and we deal with a core emotional experience of, let's say, self-acceptance, you do want to be a little less didactic. Ideally, you don't want to be didactic at all, but you do wanna pull back on the messaging and maybe weave in some gray area there. Maybe the idea is that, okay, self-acceptance is something good to shoot for, but you're not necessarily gonna nail it every time. A bonus tip here is that for the most part, outside of picture book, and books for kind of chapter book, early reader, age readers, you don't wanna button things up nicely. I think a lot of readers are very capable of interpreting the world and seeing that things don't wrap up in a nice package. So an ending where everything comes together perfectly will seem unrealistic and maybe even a little bit patronizing to readers.

So even if your story is a happy, inspiring story, maybe there's something in the ending that is a little realistic, hints at the gray area nature of life in general. Otherwise, readers may not respect the ending, they may think that it buttons up too nicely, and one of the worst things that you can have a reader say about your ending is that it's unrealistic, because that communicates that maybe the story that you're telling doesn't come across as authentic or true. And when I say true, I mean in the sense of the vulnerability, the authenticity, sort of the human impact of the story, not necessarily, obviously, if you're writing fiction, it's not a "true story," but things feel true to readers, even if they're high fantasy. So you do wanna sort of aim for an ending that doesn't button things up too nicely, otherwise it may not ring as emotionally authentic to readers.

When you talk about the core emotional experience, I want you to pay attention to imagery. In a lot of novel, fiction kind of older reader stories, you'll use imagery a lot to communicate your theme. Now, the theme is, again, that sort of emotional truth at the center of your story. Let's go back to the example of self-acceptance. How do you communicate self-acceptance? Well, you don't want to have the character sitting there and saying, "Gee, I love myself now," at the end of your novel, because that's not gonna be very satisfying. Readers are gonna know that life doesn't necessarily work that way. So maybe have the reader stare into the mirror and, you know, kind of look at themselves and for the first time ever find something that they like in the mirror. That doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna happen tomorrow. That doesn't necessarily mean that this self-love is binding or forever, but it is sort of a hopeful glimmer that also, if you look, it sets up a potential future that happens off the page.

That's one other thing that you wanna do, which is imply that the character has a future. Unless it's one of those rare stories where the character dies at the end, you do wanna imply that maybe they'll have some kind of life moving forward. Now, if we take a science fiction example, and they've had to scuttle the planet and sort of leave it behind and start anew, maybe your final image can be your main character, the protagonist, sort of with flames at their back, staring at a sunrise over a new planet. You know, this is sort of a very archetypal cliche image, but it implies the power of the individual to take some kind of control for their destiny and the destiny of others. And it also implies that there's a new day coming, something new coming for the character. So that kind of hits both the thematic element as well as this element of implying that something is happening moving forward in the story. This brings me to the point of the series.

A lot of people do want a series, but with traditional publishing, especially aiming for a series or requiring a series to tell your story can be a bit of a liability. The reason being you are a brand new unknown debut in the case of a lot of writers who are aspiring to publish and haven't gotten there yet. And so a publisher, you know, if they bet on a series and it goes gangbusters and everybody's dreams are fulfilled, that's great, but they don't necessarily know that going out of the gate. And so requiring a three-book deal to tell your story, it puts you in a weaker role, you don't have as much leverage. Ideally, you will publish one book that resolves mostly maybe 90%. But there's serious potential. So we say in the pitch, and have the publisher come to you and say, "Hey, we really want to buy a second and third book. Do you have anything for us?" That puts you in a power position rather than forcing you to sort of beg the publisher for a three-book deal, which a lot of debut writers may not necessarily be successful doing.

To my point about knowing your market and your audience, there are things like fantasy, and science fiction, or even mystery thriller that do lend themselves very naturally to a series pitch. There, you may wanna leave a little bit more of the ending open-ended. But how to write a good story ending in terms of the series element, you do want to sort of button up about 85%, 90% of your story. That means the protagonist's development arc should be pretty well-buttoned up, main relationships, and as well as your character's objective throughout the story should be either met or not met, depending on the kind of story that you're writing, and readers should at least know what happens with that objective, those main character relationships. Now, again, you can leave things kind of open-ended in terms of smaller threads, maybe a sub-plot, maybe an antagonist character shows glimmers that they'll be back. But for the most part, you do want readers to have that core emotional experience of a resolution, first and foremost, when they close your final page, because you wanna reward them for going through the last 5, 6, 20 hours of reading time with you, and you want to resolve a story and give it at least a settled feeling for the most part.

Now, for independent writers, this advice changes a little bit. You do want, I would say, to play some games, especially if you have a planned series. Now, one of the good things about publishing independently is you can release books quickly. That means you can write a big series of let's say 12 books, maybe they're 20,000, 40,000 words each, and you can put them on an every 3 months schedule, which a lot of people have a lot of success with a strategy like that. In that case, you can absolutely end on a cliffhanger. In traditional publishing, a cliffhanger is sort of a big no-no. If your book ends on a cliffhanger in the slush pile, agents are gonna be like, "Dude, this is a blatant play to get a series." You may not be successful. You need to really wrap up the story. In indie publishing, that advice doesn't hold true at all. If you want to really grab your reader in a series, you can absolutely, boom, end on a cliffhanger. And then the next page will be an advertisement for your next installment coming in three months or whatever. And that is a great marketing way to get readers engaged and get readers on to the entire track of your series. But, again, that advice works well for indie, it doesn't work that well for traditional. In traditional, you really wanna make sure that your story is at least 85%, 90% resolved unless you know that you're writing it as a series, then you can sort of leave more up in the air.

Now, the most important thing about an ending though, I would say is that idea of the character change and how theme comes together and that emotion that you make the reader feel. How do you do that? I would suggest imagery, as I mentioned, and the last thing that you wanna do is to explain the theme. So, for example, that character looking at themselves in the mirror and grappling with the theme of self-acceptance, you do not want to sit the reader down and say, "Now, we all have to find something about ourselves that we love." It'll seem condescending, especially if you look at a market of young readers, your readers, they're in middle grade, are gonna be 9 to 12 years old, they do not wanna be talked down to. Adults don't wanna be talked down to either, just ask my husband when we're fighting. But, you know, you don't want to hit the reader over the head. And that is something that I think is one of the key ideas here, at least in this short talk. Do not hit the reader over the head, but maybe give them an image, give them an image they can really unpack and take with them, a strong, strong visual.

You know, in The Great Gatsby, there's this great visual of these boats and beating back the tide or whatever the line is. And that is sort of one of the most famous last images in literature, because it sort of really, really ties the entire story together. So if it's been a while since you've read your Gatsby, maybe look at how that last chapter there ties everything together. And there's a reason that that image of the boats and the lights in the distance, that image resonates with the readers and has resonated with readers for so long is because it is sort of one of these archetypal images, but it also brings a lot of emotion to the page without really hitting the reader over the head. So I would say these are some great considerations for how to write a good story ending. The needs of your particular story in your particular category may vary, but take these lessons to heart, and, again, in your ending as well as with everything try to respect your reader, they will reward you for it. This has been Mary Kole with a Good Story Company YouTube video, and here's to a good story.

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