Writing The Book You Love, by Josh Stallings

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

A: There are three vital sections in a novel that you have to get right - 

1) The first twenty pages, get those wrong and most readers will move on to another book. Cold but true. And not just readers, agents, editors, publishers, hell everyone but your family will drop it. Honestly even your family will put it down, but most of them care enough to lie to you.

“I love your new book, Son.”

“Yeah, what part?”

“You know, the, um, the word choices and metaphors. It’s perfect.”

2) Next vital part is the end. It is as the say, “The take away.”  No matter how well you nail the book if the end fails to satisfy readers they will fail to tell everyone right down to the bus driver, that they all need to read your book. Book sales depend on evangelized readers.

3) The last vital part is everything in between the first twenty pages and the ending. Vital but not as vital. Readers want to love your book. If you hook them on characters they care about and root for, set in a unique/clever plot and world, do all that in twenty pages and most readers will forgive a stumble here or there. So I guess there are two vital sections and one very very very important section.

This week the Criminal Minds have out done themselves, you really should read each of their answers. The four earlier essays will ground you in the writing of a book's ending. Susan, Gabriel, Cathy, and Catriona have done the intellectual heavy lifting and left me to stop typing. But that feels lazy. So I’ll muddle down my synaptic highways and dirt roads in search of an answer I can claim as my own.

Last week the Ladybug Readers Book Club met at the Idyllwild Library to discuses TRICKY. They were kind enough to ask me to join them for a Q and A. Their questions and comments were witty and insightful. I’m not just saying that because they really got and dug TRICKY. One question they asked stumped me for a moment, paraphrasing, “Do you write with a particular reader in mind?”

“Absolutely, I write for intelligent, open minded, caring readers.” Would have been the correct answer. But hearing these readers share honestly about my work pushed me to do the same. “When I’m actively writing, not thinking but typing words, the only person I care to please is myself.” Is this egotistical or rude? Maybe. It is also the truth. I started writing because there were books I wanted to read that no one but me could write. 

Pragmatically I figure if I write a book I’d want to read, we have at least one sale. If I write a book I don’t want to read we may have zero. 

I understand that readers have expectations for a book’s ending. I don’t know how to write to that expectation without it coming off mechanical and manipulative. To pull off an organically satisfying ending I need to trust myself and write/rewrite until it clicks or sings or makes me feel.  

I don’t think too deeply about sub genre, or even genre as a whole. Having read a shit-ton of different types of books I feel I have internalized structural ideas and constraints leaving me free to follow the story and characters where they lead me. I used to give newer writers the advice that they should read voraciously. I stopped this when it hit me that every writer I know reads all the time. None of us go into the craft without a love of books. Same is true regardless of where you are on your writing journey. Get a group of writers together and the first thing we talk about is what we are reading. 

This is supposed to be about endings, right?

I’m on it.

Looking over the books I’ve written I discover I like the symmetry of going full circle. My first book Beautiful, Naked & Dead started with Mosses McGuire’s morning ritual of playing Russian roulette.

“There is nothing quite like the cold taste of gun oil on a stainless steel barrel to bring your life into focus.”

 

And ended with… 

“I’ve stopped putting guns in my mouth and whiskey in my gut. Somewhere on the road, I had traveled from suicidal to homicidal, not much, but it’s growth. All in all, I have a good life, a dog who adores me, a friend to drink coffee with and another day above ground. For children of the battle zone that’s called winning.” - Beautiful, Naked & Dead. 

For a novel to feel complete I need for the main characters to have grown and gotten better at being humans, even if the movements are incremental. It is the struggle not the result that I find noble. I am a romantic and humanist at heart.   

Nihilism should be left to the young, and those lucky enough to have escaped the deep hurts that force you to realize most days hope is all we have. 

Suffering doesn’t ennoble, it just hurts. As Moses McGuire says, “That which does not kill you, leaves you scarred for life.”

If you’ve read all five essays this week, you will see every one of us has some gripes or what-not-to-do rules. And they are good to consider… then throw them away and write your own rules. 

What do you like — no that’s too weak — what do you love in a book? 

Write what you love even if doing that means breaking every rule you’ve been taught.

Write with passion. 

Believe in yourself. 

Remember, when you are done with that first draft there are scores of people who will take your work apart. Don’t you be one of them, unless it motivates you to dig deeper. 

Lastly — this is key — If and when someone takes your manuscript apart in a way that makes it better, don’t forget to thank them.