We spend hours, days and months crafting the perfect first line. The hook. The first five pages. But how much time do we spend getting the perfect END to the story? Join James Scott Bell as he tells us how.
The famous hardboiled writer Mickey Spillane, who was at one time the bestselling author in the world, once said, “Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it’s a letdown, they won’t buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book.”
We’ve all had this experience, in movies and with books––an ending that let us down. As writers, our task is to never, ever let that happen.
Not as easy as the opening. I love openings. I can write openings all day long.
But endings? That’s the hard part. Here are a few thoughts that have helped me along the way.
1. Think of the ending as a final battle
Every ending should be a final battle inside and outside of the main character, often both. By outside, I mean that there are physical or circumstantial against the Lead. This might mean the forces of the Empire in Star Wars or the physical stammer of Prince Albert in The King’s Speech.
By inside, I mean a psychological battle that has to be resolved.
In Casablanca, for example, the real fight is inside Rick (Humphrey Bogart). He has spent the whole movie as the anti-hero, not taking a stand against the Nazis. Then the love of his life, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) comes to his saloon, with her husband, the war hero Victor Lazlo (Paul Henreid). At the end, Rick can have Ilsa back. She has consented to leave with him.
And it’s freaking INGRID BERGMAN! Talk about having your ideal within reach!
But if he does take her, he’ll be violating a central moral tenet of society. The writers set it up, too, that it will devastate Lazlo, thus hurting the war effort itself.
Rick has to make an inner battle decision, and ultimately sacrifices what he wants most in the world for a greater good. It becomes the most famous ending in Hollywood history when he gets an unexpected reward – the French police captain, Louis (Claude Rains) does not arrest Rick for murdering the Nazi major. Instead, they go off together to rejoin the war effort. It’s “the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
So aim for that in your ending. If it’s an outside forces type of ending, as in a thriller, the Lead must find the courage to fight against strong odds. If it’s inside, the Lead must find the moral courage to do the right thing. If he doesn’t, the story becomes a tragedy.
2. The Q Factor
True character is only revealed in crisis. That’s why novels put characters through the crucible of conflict. Ideally, that conflict reaches a climax where the end is in doubt, the odds are stacked against the Lead, the final battle looks bleak.
The character will need some emotional push to get over the doubts and fears. I call this push The Q Factor. It comes from the character in the James Bond movies, the one who is always giving Bond his gadgets and telling him not to play with them. There is a very important reason this character exists.
Let’s cut ahead to the inevitable James Bond ending. Bond has been hung by his ankles over a school of piranha . The bad guy grins and says something like, “Enjoy your swim, Mr. Bond.” Then he sets the timer to lower James Bond into the pool of piranha and walks out.
As Bond is lowered toward his doom, he manages to get his thumb on one of his cufflinks. The cufflink turns into a small, rotating saw. He uses that saw to cut through the restraints on his hands.
He is able to reach into his jacket pocket and pull out a fountain pen. The fountain pen is, in reality, a device that holds a compressed nitrogen charge and shoots a small grappling hook and line across the piranha pond, enabling Bond to cut his leg restraints and swing to safety on the other side of the pool.
Now, if we had been reading along in the story and gotten to this point, and Bond simply produced those items for the first time, we’d all be groaning. How convenient! What a cheat!
But of course, it was all set up by the Q scene. Because we saw these items before, we are perfectly accepting of them when they come out at the right time.
In fiction, the Lead character should reach a point near the end when everything looks lost. This can be something outside or inside the character, or both. But he is, in figurative terms, dangling over a pool of piranha.
What he needs is courage for the final battle, the ultimate test. This is where the Q Factor can help. It is something that is set up early in the story which will provide the necessary inspiration or instruction for the character when he needs it most.
Luke Skywalker hearing his beloved Obi-Wan’s voice, reminding him to “Use the Force,” is one example of a Q Factor. Simba seeing and hearing his father in the clouds in The Lion King. The voices of these loved ones come back to provide an emotional lift, a jolt of courage, at a crucial moment.
Or the Q Factor can be subtle and implicit. In Casablanca, Rick finally decides to take a stand against the Nazis by getting Victor Lazlo and Ilsa out of Casablanca.
Why does he do the right thing? What triggered it? In an early scene, the Nazi major, Strasser, is trying to figure Rick out by questioning him. Rick doesn’t want to make waves, but Strasser prods him, hinting that the Nazis might someday be in New York.
Rick says, ” Well, there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn’t advise you to try to invade.”
We see here that Rick has good old American attitude somewhere down deep. Near the end of Act 2, Rick allows his orchestra to play the French national anthem at Lazlo’s request. Lazlo is doing this to counter the Nazis who have started singing their own tune in Rick’s saloon.
This is a Q moment. Rick is moved by Lazlo’s bravery. We sense a connection between Rick’s lost idealism and his admiration for Lazlo. When Rick makes his sacrificial decision at the end, we accept that it has built to this point.
In a romance, the Q Factor may be that moment that changes one of the characters so they can truly love. Scarlett sees Ashley as he is, after Melanie’s death, and realizes that she has made an ideal of him. He never really existed at all, except in my imagination, she thinks.
And then she realizes the meaning of a dream she’s been having—it is her running home to Rhett. She now knows Rhett is the one she truly loves. Of course, by then it’s too late. Not all stories have happy endings. (I sometimes wonder if, in the first draft, Margaret Mitchell’s final line was, “Tomorrow will probably pretty much suck, too.”)
So a Q Factor can be a helpful way of thinking through a character’s inner journey. It’s highly flexible. It’s helped me tighten up my endings and might do the same for you.
3. My Own, Personal Method
When it comes to the actual writing of my endings, I have a method I call “Stew, Brew and Do.” It’s a little eccentric, but it works for me.
Stew
I spend a lot of time at the end of a manuscript just stewing about the ending. Brooding over it. I’ve got my final scenes in mind, of course, and have written toward them. I may even have written a temporary ending. But I know I won’t be satisfied until I give the whole thing time to simmer. I put the manuscript aside for awhile, work on other projects, let the “boys in the basement” (Stephen King’s great metaphor for the subconscious mind) take over.
I tell myself to dream about the ending before going to bed. I write down notes in the morning.
Brew
Then one morning I’ll spend a couple of hours poring over my notes and pages, thinking hard about the ending. Then I forget about it.
I take a long walk.
There is a Starbucks half an hour from my office. (In fact, there is a Starbucks half an hour from anyplace in the world). I put a small notebook in my back pocket and walk there, listening to music, not thinking about my story.
I get to Starbucks and order a brew—a solo espresso. I down it, wait a few minutes for it to kick in, and then start writing notes in the notebook about my ending. I write whatever comes to mind, without editing. The most original ideas for the ending happen here. My goal is to have lots of ideas and then choose the best ones.
Do
I go back to my office and write until finished.
4. Resonance
Finally, when I’m in the editing phase, I pay special attention to the very last lines. I want a certain sound, a “resonance.” It’s not something you can formalize. Each book is different. But I often tweak my endings twenty or thirty times. I want to get something like Salinger gets at the end of The Catcher in the Rye:
It’s funny. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.
That is a line that sums up the entire book in a few words and jerks your emotions at the same time. And it’s possible to get this in any genre. You just have to work hard for it.
But the work is worth it because readers will not only be happy with your ending, they’ll be clamoring for your next book, too.
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What book ending has stayed with you for years?
Join us on Friday for a Debut Author’s Interview with our very own Adrienne Giordano!
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Bio: JAMES SCOTT BELL is the bestselling author of Deceived, Try Dying, Watch Your Back and several other thrillers. He served as fiction columnist for Writer’s Digest magazine, to which he frequently contributes, and has written three bestselling craft books for Writers Digest, including the #1 writing book of the decade, Plot & Structure.
Jim attended the University of California, Santa Barbara where he studied writing with Raymond Carver. He graduated with honors from the University of Southern California law school, and has written over 300 articles and numerous books for the legal profession.
A former trial lawyer, Jim now writes and speaks full time. He lives in Los Angeles. His website is www.JamesScottBell.com.
You can follow him at Twitter.com/jamesscottbell and on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/pages/James-Scott-Bell/108765742543789
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Hi James. Welcome to RU. Fantastic post. Just printed it and added it to my editing binder.
I have my own version of Stew, Brew and Do and it includes walking as well. Something about the sounds of nature gets my creative juices flowing. Thanks for a great post!
Posted by Adrienne Giordano | July 6, 2011, 6:25 amHi James,
Thanks for using three of my favorite movies to illustrate your point. I sometimes run through Hitchcock movies for the big bang finish. I may write the ending first and make sure all things point to it.
Mary Jo
Posted by Mary Jo Burke | July 6, 2011, 7:18 amMorning James!
I do like your Stew, Brew and Do…although I do it without the caffeine. The dreaming and notebooks, definitely.
What do you suggest for a book ending for a series? I’ve read so many series endings that leave you hanging miserably til the next book comes out (sometimes yeeeeeears later) and it drives me crazy! Should a series book end with a satisfying ending? or a hook into the next book?
One of my favorite book endings is Knight in Shining Armor, by Jude Deveraux. It comes quick on the heels of the black moment, she’s lost it all. She’s in tears, I’m in tears. And then, there’s a little ray of hope, right there, 3 pages from the end. And you end with a smile instead of sobbing into your kleenex……=) Very emotional.
Thanks for posting with us today James, I’m definitely printing this one out too!
carrie
Posted by Carrie Spencer | July 6, 2011, 7:19 amI LOVED that ending! It wasn’t until later, once the internet was more prevalent, that I found out there were people who didn’t like it. I thought it was perfect.
Posted by Kat Cantrell | July 6, 2011, 8:06 amOh I just bawled…lol….the first time I read it I went through half a box of Kleenex….and then it was …okay. She’d met the new guy. And it was all going to be fine. hahaha…I’m tearing up again now just thinking about it.
Just goes to show a great book ending will affect you for YEARS!!!
=)
Posted by Carrie Spencer | July 6, 2011, 8:33 amAdrienne, thanks for the comment. Great idea about having an editing binder. I have a writers notebook for each project as well.
Mary Jo, you just can’t beat my man Hitch. And writing the ending first is indeed a great way to go. Reminds me of the joke about a guy in a bar with a squirrel, and says it writes mysteries. “Come on!” the bartender says, “How can a squirrel write a mystery?” And the guys says, “He starts with the ending and works backward.”
Posted by James Scott Bell | July 6, 2011, 7:28 amLove the squirell joke! Funny!
Posted by Adrienne Giordano | July 6, 2011, 10:07 amCarrie, that’s a great question. I’ve done it both ways. I once ended the second book in a series with a big plot point “hanging.” I certainly liked it, but many readers were frustrated as you suggest.
My thought now is that each book ought to wrap up its main plot, but then you have character relationships that continue to evolve. I think the writer who does this best right now is Michael Connelly.
Posted by James Scott Bell | July 6, 2011, 7:31 amThanks for this illuminating post James! I struggle with endings and I need a process. I’m going to try yours on my next manuscript.
I’m having a hard time coming up with book endings I really liked. Mostly I remember the ones I hated…
Posted by Kat Cantrell | July 6, 2011, 8:12 amJames -
Thanks for being at RU today. I’m a big fan of The Art of War for Writers, so today’s post may inspire me to read it again soon.
I’m one of those writers who has a very hard time envisioning the black moment and ending of my story. Perhaps I need to pull a “squirrel” and just start from the ending. I don’t typically write suspense so I think I need to focus on the emotional black moment and construct a physical scenario that matches the emotional one.
I’ll remember to try the Stew, Brew & Do method next time I’m stuck.
Thanks again!
Kelsey
Posted by KelseyBrowning | July 6, 2011, 9:14 amHi James,
Great post. Seriously, how can you beat “Tommorow is another day”?
And the Q factor is brilliant. Thanks!
One ending that truly disturbed me and just wouldn’t let me go was Jodi Picoult’s My Sisters’ Keeper. Anna dying was such a bolt out of the blue I couldn’t sleep for a week. But really, what other way was there to end that story? And the fact that finally at the end we hear Kate’s POV. It was genius, and an awful painful thing to do to readers. But there you have it, not just a battle but an entire war, won and lost!
Sorry, Picoult sends me into raptures
Thanks again for a great post!
Sonali
Posted by Sonali Mayadev Thatte | July 6, 2011, 9:19 amHi Kat. It’s telling that you remember the endings you “hated.” That really sticks with readers. It’s our challenge never to let them feel that way!
Kelsey, thanks for the nice word about Art of War. Coming up with a potential black moment/ending at least points you in a direction. You have the freedom to change it when you get there. That should relieve you of some stress. Good luck!
Posted by James Scott Bell | July 6, 2011, 9:20 amSpeaking of the Art of War, that’s where my editing binder came from. “The career novelist will develop a writing improvement program, beginning with a notebook.”
This book has so many great (and quick) ideas. I keep it on my desk for bad days when I need a pick me up!
Posted by Adrienne Giordano | July 6, 2011, 10:11 amSonali, that is truly the power of a great ending. You want to read more of her books! You don’t need to apologize for that. Thanks for sharing.
Adrienne, I’m really pleased to hear that. Thanks.
Posted by James Scott Bell | July 6, 2011, 10:19 amHow much time do we spend writing the perfect ending? Forever.
Or at least that’s what it feels like. I’ve been writing the ending – or leading up to it – for the past month. And every day for the past week I thought I’d be writing THE END.
This blog came at a perfect time for me. It’s funny, I do dream about the ending every night. Sometimes I think this story is taking over my life! I see what I’ve been missing, though: Starbucks. Who knew?
I love the examples you quoted here. Now I’m going to take a good long look at my notes and think about what you wrote here.
Somehow I don’t think I’ll be writing THE END today.
Posted by Becke Davis (Becke Martin) | July 6, 2011, 10:30 amLOL Becke. I tweak my last page sometimes 20-30 times. I really want that last line to leave the readers with a good feeling.
Posted by James Scott Bell | July 6, 2011, 10:35 amMy first thought as far as perfect endings was the same as Sonali’s, Gone With the Wind. But then, I thought, no, I’m always frustrated by that ending. I want more.
So I’m changing my perfect ending to the scene in White Christmas, the movie with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, when the gather all of the general’s old troops to rally around him in his latter years. That’s a perfect ending.
I too tend to remember endings I hated, usually movies where the main character dies, like The Jack Bull or The Perfect Storm.
Posted by PatriciaW | July 6, 2011, 11:11 amIf we’re talking movies, two of my favorite endings are from around 1970:
THE GRADUATE and WHAT’S UP DOC?
The ending to BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID was one of the most memorable endings, but I always hate it when the main characters die.
Now take THE STING – THERE’s an ending!
Posted by Becke Davis (Becke Martin) | July 6, 2011, 11:15 amPatricia, GWTW is one of those “ambiguous” endings. Sometimes that can work. Some genres demand things be wrapped up. That’s one thing: know the conventions of your genre.
Posted by James Scott Bell | July 6, 2011, 11:17 amJames, thanks for spending time with us at RU! Like Adrienne, I’m printing this lecture out and placing it in my keeper file.
Mickey Spillane’s thoughts on the beginning and ending of a book really resonated with me. Sometimes I get the feeling authors rush through the ending either to meet a deadline or out of sheer relief that’s it’s over.
Thanks again. By the way, I love your The Art of War for Writers book!
Tracey
Posted by Tracey Devlyn | July 6, 2011, 11:56 amJames – Thanks so much for posting today! Sorry I’m late but the day job kept rearing it’s ugly head today.
I had a question about Epilogues. I tend to include them and give the reader a hint at the romance HEA – so I end up writing two endings for the book, in reality. Any advice on how to get two punches for the price of one? : )
Best endings? Pulp Fiction (although it wasn’t really and ending when you think of it chronologically) Oh – Romancing the Stone. So romantic!
Robin
Posted by Robin Covington | July 6, 2011, 12:20 pmTracey, I get that same feeling sometimes about endings. Too bad, too, if the rest of the book was good. Thanks for the kind word about Art of War.
Posted by James Scott Bell | July 6, 2011, 2:01 pmRobin, I understand most of the time in romance it’s got to be HEA. I do think there is value in brainstorming 3 or 4 alternate endings, then choosing one of them to be a twist ending or used in some fashion like that. It’s fun, too.
Posted by James Scott Bell | July 6, 2011, 2:04 pmHi James!
I love the Q-Bond film anaolgy! (And the Bond theme song has been twanging in my head for the past hour too.) Your Q analogy sort of reminds me of something one of our other RU guests had mentioned about giving a character a symbol and carrying that symbolism throughout the story.
When I insert the “symbol” early on in the story, I ask myself if the reader will need a further explanation of it even though the reveal will come later in the story. But like you stated, it has to be done early, otherwise, it seems like a convenient ploy if revealed too late in the story. I’m not sure if my rambling is making any sense.
Endings…it’s almost as bad as writing five first pages and trying to get it right! I love epilogues. It provides the opportunity to tie up the loose ends. And that way, I won’t have to write a rushed ending, which is one of my peeves when I’ve invested time in reading a book.
Thank you so much for being with us on RU today!
Jen
Posted by jennifer tanner | July 6, 2011, 5:02 pmJen, thanks for the good word and good thoughts. I completely agree with your sentiments about symbols and endings.
Posted by James Scott Bell | July 6, 2011, 6:20 pmSo good to see you here, Jim at RU! Another awesome post from the master.
Posted by Martha Ramirez | July 13, 2011, 1:00 pmThanks, Martha. This seems like a good, solid place to learn a lot of good things.
Posted by James Scott Bell | July 13, 2011, 1:04 pm