by Zoe M. McCarthy, @ZoeMMcCarthy
If you don’t backload a satisfying ending to your story, readers may not buy your next book.
We’ll look at tips for a satisfying ending scene(s). When I say ending scene, I don’t mean an epilogue.
Tips for a Satisfying Ending*
Tip 1: Don’t Rush the Ending
The reader will feel like the author wrapped up everything quickly to meet a deadline.
In a romance, you might be tempted to hurry the heroine to agree to an engagement or say “I do,” at the altar. Perhaps you could slow the ending down by wrapping up a minor subplot. Maybe the heroine has wanted a place to call home since the beginning. Without belaboring the ending, maybe you could bring this idea full circle before or after promises of love.
Tip 2: Don’t End in a Flurry of Conflicts and High Emotions
Cutting off the story when actions and emotions are intense is like characters sprinting to a cliff with bad men in pursuit and the reader turns the page to find “The End.”
Readers need to come down from the emotional frenzy and witness what the characters feel and do when they’re in their more normal state. In a legal thriller, after a highly emotional court drama and verdict play out, a short scene occurring on the next day might follow. Over breakfast in a diner, the defending lawyer shares with the released defendant how at the last moment he obtained the one piece of evidence that saved the defendant’s life.Continue reading