Writing Memorable Endings: How to Leave a Lasting Impact on Your Readers
When you start reading a novel, you want to know how it ends. As an author writing a novel, or a collection of short stories, you need to know how it ends. Both you and your readers are invested in your story’s conclusion. You’ll want to leave your readers a lasting impact when your story ends, because they deserve it for having invested their time and engagement. That’s how it goes with endings.
If I didn’t know the ending of a story, I wouldn’t begin. I always write my last line, my last paragraph, my last page first.
—Katherine Anne Porter
The 4 Elements of a Compelling Story Ending
Literary fiction writers need to implement certain elements to ensure their readers are satisfied by how the story ends. That is, the story arc will have reached a logical conclusion and the protagonist/s have achieved their goal (escaped danger, saved a loved one or an important person, found what they were looking for, or, as the case often is, found something better).
The elements that any novelist must implement effectively to ensure a satisfying, high-impact ending should include these four:
1. Resolution
Your novel doesn’t really end if the central conflict you introduced at the start of the story is not resolved. Your readers need to see that the story is complete. Or in the case of a trilogy or a series, the end of the first two books must effectively set up the book that follows.
2. Transformation
Character transformation is integral to any story, especially its ending. Your story’s compelling end will come about thanks in part to a compelling point in the growth and development of your character. Your main character will have arrived at life-changing realizations from their experiences—and perhaps will have undergone some degree of physical changes in some cases. Whatever the transformation, it should be palpable in the ending.
3. Suspense
Suspense isn’t strictly for suspense, action-packed, or thriller novels. It isn’t always overt. A novel can be suspenseful in terms of emotional tension and internal conflict. Essentially, a story’s ending is made intense and riveting when the protagonist’s circumstances seems hopeless in a non-contrived way, but then just in the nick of time, they are able to surmount the insurmountable or escape the inescapable, also in a non-contrived manner. That’s crucial to an ending that makes an impact on the readers.
4. Surprise
In some of the best stories with the most compelling surprise at the end, the author has actually skillfully left clues along the way (foreshadowing among them) so that the surprise becomes all the more incredible once the reader sees how the author has effectively been building up to it.
So you don’t want a predictable ending, but you want an ending that surprises and makes sense, regardless of whether or not clues have been cleverly laid along the way.
How to Write a Satisfying and Unforgettable Ending for Your Novel
You know, the only thing that matters is the ending. It's the most important part of the story, the ending.
—Stephen King (through Mort Rainey), Secret Window
All great novelists share one very important skill: knowing how to end a story. Yes, writing the ending poses a bigger challenge than writing the chapters. Because writing an ending that makes a great impact on the readers takes skill, focus/patience, and a great deal of honesty. First-time authors need to realize this and embrace the challenge.
To get you on the right track, we have listed seven writing tips to help you give your story the best possible ending:
1. Know how your story will end before you begin it.
Starting a book with a clear idea of how it ends gives you clear directions as you and your characters navigate your way through the story. It’s easier for you to stay on track when you have a clear destination ahead.
However, that doesn’t mean that making changes is out of the question. You can always add or take something out as you write. If during the revision stages you have a brainstorm and end up with new ideas that will serve your story better, you can make more changes. But that’s for later. First, you need a first draft, and that’s why you need to have an ending to work toward. At the very least, you need a general idea of what happens at the end, so you can do such foundation work as placing narrative clues in strategic chapters/passages, establishing your characters’ backgrounds and backstories, working out their motivations, strengths, flaws, and so on.
2. Write a tense, hectic lead-up to the story’s end.
The lead-up to any novel’s end is where the stakes are highest. This is where you put your protagonist in the direst of straits. But putting them there should actually happen earlier in the story, when you’re building up to the point where nothing seems to go right or there seems no way out.
To get to this point, you’ll need to find the most compelling combination of character strengths and flaws, motivations, the influence of other characters, the character’s environment, any irresistible force outside of the character’s control (force majeure), or an outright act of God (flood, earthquake, etc.). This helps to ensure that any twist you throw in (whether it makes things difficult for your character or it ultimately saves or helps them succeed) will have a logical connection to the story instead of just added in to tick off a box. This is how to create proper suspense and get the reader invested in the fate of your character and make them care that the character may not succeed in their goal or survive their ordeal.
Compelling and well-constructed last-minute suspense leads to a satisfying, well-earned ending, even if it may not necessarily be a happy one.
3. Explore your options.
As we have established, having an ending in mind doesn’t mean you must stick with that ending. It is a possible ending. Having it in mind can help you to create a workable outline. On that note, it is entirely possible to draw up two or more outlines with their respective endings. This exploration part of writing can prove to be a rich source of ideas. Naturally, you’ll be working within a specific timeline, but writing as a creative endeavor does deserve a reasonable amount of leeway. It can’t hurt to be a little flexible if it allows you to fully explore all the possible directions you can take your story.
As you explore your ending options (as well as your character’s journey toward it), pay attention to the emotional impact on the reader of each possible ending. Also, how would each ending affect the entire story? Would it amplify your themes? Would it answer the main question in the story? Would it leave the character in the right place as the story closes? Note that right here doesn’t necessarily mean good or happy; rather, it means the place that the character’s journey (everything that happened in the story in relation to the character’s strengths and flaws) are supposed to lead them to.
Keep in mind: Your character’s journey may not always involve a straight-line trajectory going from point A to point F or farther. Sometimes it can involve going full circle or following a zigzag trajectory (a highly believable option). Or how about a surprise ending? This involves launching your storyline along one path and then doing a 180 degree. For this kind of ending to be effective, you need an unsuspecting reader, which means the clues you scatter along the way won’t be obvious but make perfect sense in hindsight. A good, and pretty popular, example is a thriller that offers two or more red herrings before the perpetrator is finally revealed.
4. Leave room for reader’s interpretation.
Pay attention to how your story unfolds on the page versus how you initially imagined it to end. If a closed ending feels rather stale or lacks an emotional punch an open-ended ending may be the best way to conclude your story. Or if the ending is perhaps too obvious, but at the same time it’s also the best way to end the story, consider introducing a lingering question to suggest that things could still go in a different direction down the line—a possibility that will engage your readers long after they have finished reading your book.
Giving your readers room to explore their own interpretation of how your story ends and what happens beyond is a great way to maximize their engagement. This is especially important in open-ended endings.
As for cliffhangers, they are endings that promise an answer. As such, they are not the same as open-ended endings, which give the readers enough information to go on to work out what happens beyond the last line on the page. They are best reserved for novels with a sequel (where the answer to the questions in the ending are answered) and for chapter endings (where the next chapter/s will provided the answers to the questions posed in the preceding chapter). They are not ideal for a stand-alone book.
5. Write an ending that makes sense.
Regardless of genre, story conclusions have to make sense (even those that may not seem to do so at first!). However you end your story—quietly devastating or with a bang—it must be an ending that the reader arrives at through logical progression influenced by plot development and character development.
Avoid resorting to contrived solutions when your plot and your character’s attitude and actions have put an insurmountable obstacle in their way. In theater, this approach is known as deux ex machina, in reference to a god introduced by means of a crane in ancient Greek and Roman theaters to bring resolution to a story. This means introducing an element that was never there before and has no relation to the characters and the events in the story.
This kind of plot device will rob your story of a hard-earned, satisfying ending. It will leave your characters with a hollow sense of victory, after all they have gone through to survive their ordeal or make a dream come true. Lastly, it will short-change your readers who are invested in your story and deserve the satisfaction of seeing the character arrive at the end of their journey because of their actions and the choices they made.
6. Tap into your readers’ emotions.
A great story ending leaves an emotional impact on the reader. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a sad, tragic, bittersweet, or happy ending, or a complex mix—it must make your reader feel. The ending may resonate emotionally with them through their personal experiences, or it may simply stir their emotions for the character.
Emotional resonance makes your story memorable. It may inspire readers to revisit your book at some point in the future, especially when they find themselves in a time in their life when their situation mirrors something in your story. Or it may compel them to reread it almost immediately because of a strong emotional reaction.
7. Resolve your storyline with the story’s ending.
The ending of a story should leave the reader with a well-deserved sense of closure for having been along the ride as the character navigates through their story. By the end, you will have tied up all narrative loose ends. Actually, all doesn’t really mean every single loose end. As we have earlier established, you can leave a loose end or two at the end as a strategic move to maximize the impact of the ending on the readers and keep them thinking about your story. The important thing is to resolve all loose ends that are integral to the main story and character arcs.
Fill any plot holes with details and information that serve to enrich the whole story rather than just perfunctorily answer a question. Tie up all the threads that run throughout your story, prioritizing your main character’s quest as well as other important characters’ storylines and subplots, especially those that have a significant influence on your plot and main character.
Note that not all resolutions have to happen at the end of the story. In fact, you may want to start tying up loose ends, especially minor ones, in the third- and second-to-last chapters to avoid distractions from the resolution of the major elements in the story.
The Takeaway
Whether your story’s ending actually opens your story or it appears in its traditional place at the end, it must be a compelling ending. It must logically flow from and consolidate all the elements (emotional, intellectual, and psychological) you have introduced in your narrative. Every author must invest the necessary time and effort to writing memorable endings, because the ending of any book is a precious opportunity to leave a lasting impact on the readers and influence the way they see the world and the people around them, and ultimately, change their lives.
