And So It Goes

  

Q: What advice would you have for emerging writers about writing satisfying endings? Pitfalls? Things to avoid? Tips?

 

-from Susan

 

Back up a bit: What qualifies as a satisfying ending? I think readers have different ideas and preferences that lead them to choose one sub-genre over another. 

 

The killer dies in a final fire fight.

The killer kills himself.

The killer is captured by the law and will be punished.

The hero kills the killer personally, without benefit of trial.

The killer is removed from doing further harm.

The hero is rewarded.

The hero is proven to be the villain.

The hero is not rewarded but slinks off to rise again in the promised sequel.

…and so on.

 

I just finished reading two widely praised novels in which the protagonist, at the very end, kills the criminal on her own, without benefit of trial. The novels end there, and that bothers me. That kind of rough justice in both cases was unsatisfactory to me, even disturbing. It reminded me too much of America’s current environment. 

 

There are also endings that leave the villains – who were falsely presented as the victims, free to continue to cause havoc in their communities. Doesn’t work for me with the single – to me, brilliant – exception of Tom Ripley.  

 

Other endings I don’t respond well to are those in which several people die in quick succession in a town, but everyone rolls on merrily at the end, as if there was no trauma, no serious disruption. Really, Midsomer Murders, when three or four people everyone knows are killed violently in the space of a week or two?

 

My own stories are most often based on a single death, usually when the killer is backed into an emotional or situational corner, and can’t come up with a better option, or loses reasonable thought to panic about status, reputation, or money. I try to craft stories in which the ending is more than a sigh of relief, but a collective sense of returning an upset world to the comfort of the normal. (See Jane Austen.)

 

Some personal reviews on Amazon make it clear some readers don’t prefer that approach: “too quiet,” “slow,” “more about the people than the crime,” etc. But for me, the story is about the WHY and the ending must make it clear why the son of a rich art collector would steal from his father, or why a wealthy man would go to extraordinary lengths to hide what ought to be a straightforward fact. 

 

Not only do I need to answer the “why” to my own satisfaction, but because crimes don’t happen in a vacuum, the people whose sense of safety and security are at stake also need to experience the resolution in their own ways. The effect of justice served is critical to my own sense of a good ending. 

 

The coda is my method and if another writer feels as I do about depicting the crime, my tip is to savor that last, short chapter, to share as closely as possible the emotions of the characters, and give them a scene that makes sense, not just dialogue but comfort. In one recent book, I have the residents of a small village, after the drama is over, celebrating Christmas in their rundown church, not with a religious ceremony but with the ragged singing of carols, punctuated by the off-key warbling of an old man who has lived in the town all his life and has dementia. He is part of the fabric of their lives, a fabric that was badly damaged by the crime. They are healing, and that means he is safe, too. 

 

This is personal. I know when to end the coda. It’s when I feel the serenity too, having become in my mind part of that story. I care about the people too much to leave without that resolution. Confession: Twice, I have teared up at the last lines. That would be hard for me to experience if my resolutions were fast-paced thrillers and end in a blaze of violence. So, to each her or his own way to end a story. The good news for me is a lot of readers seem to like the same endings I do or I wouldn’t still be published!