How to Write the Perfect Ending

Photo Courtesy - Photo modified

One of my all around favorite series to read as a kid was the Choose Your Own Adventure. Stories came in all sorts of genres. I loved the concept so much I wrote one for my third grade students using them as the characters! 

I split the class into halves then quarters then eighths and so on until only groups of two took adventures to each location we'd studied: deserts, oceans, mountains, etc. 

We read the story on the last day of school breaking into the groups for each student's character. They loved moving around the room with their own copy of the book, splitting into smaller groups as their story progressed. They had a blast. And in the last hour of the party, instead of playing games, the kids sat in corners reading each other's adventures. How awesome is that?



Readers enjoy participating in a story.

While reading the Choose Your Own Adventure stories, I thought I'd picked the best route at every turn. I flipped pages back and forth through the maze of the most adventurous, thrilling, believe-it-or-not choices. What I didn't realize, is that the intelligent author knew which ending kids would most likely choose. How do I know, now? It had the longer ending. The easy solutions had short endings. I was hooked by the most satisfying story conclusion and loved reading the longer version.

As an adult writer, and now a smart person, I understand the HUGE importance of a perfect ending.

Here is what I've learned:

There are are three basic endings that can be morphed, tailored to your story:

Photo Courtesy-
Frozen with Hans of the Southern Isles and Anna

1. The neat and tidy...happily ever after story. These stories are sweet reads. All the issues are resolved. The characters are content in the end--at least the main character is. The reader is content. He/she closes the back cover and sighs. "What a nice story."

Think of Disney stories. She chooses the nerd over the rich guy, he is intrigued with the fun-loving gal behind the counter of the general store instead of the home coming queen. And they all live happily ever after....the end.

There have been some books written to answer the question: What happened next? Like: What was life like for Cinderella in the palace. What did the dwarves do after Snow White left with the prince? Was Beast accepted in the community after Belle saved him? What happened to Prince Hans of the Southern Isles after he was sent home? But none of these stories have stood the test of time. Why? Because we the readers were satisfied with the first story and its ending.

2. The expected ending. Terrible events have happened during the story. Some favorite characters have been injured, killed, or put in other dire straights. The story has basically let the reader know this would be. The reader's tissue is soaking wet at the beginning of the last chapter. And although it saddens her, she read the last pages, consoling herself through the expected ending. She closes the back cover and sniffs. Satisfied.

Think of Titanic, Cast Away, Poseidon Adventure, etc. There is no happily ever after ending, but we are satisfied. We've been prepared throughout the story, and although we held a glimmer of hope--the ending still came. In a way, we hope for a sequel that undoes the unfortunate events, after all, soap operas can get away with it. But deep down we know to add or undo would take away the satisfying ending.

On the flip side, romance and other stories can have expected endings. In The Fault in Our Stars Augustus, the wonderful, sweet, heroic Augustus, still dies.  We knew he would, but we cried when Hazel got the phone call that her love had, in fact, died before she did.  Romeo and Juliet both die. We knew this would happen. A well crafted story will lead the reader to expect the ending even if she hopes it doesn't. This produces a satisfied ending.

3.  What readers know in their heart to be the right ending but assume the author does not have the guts to really end the book that way. This is the type of ending I love to read. I'm a radical. I love to push the envelope. 

Remember when Rhett from Gone With the Wind said his famous line then walked away from Scarlett? Oh, yeah. I snickered and closed the book--SO satisfied. 

In the True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, on the very last page, Charlotte tells her wealthy parents she is leaving, giving up her proper Victorian upbringing to become a deck scrubbing, ratline climbing, and if necessary, mutiny siding seaman. Oh yes. Another unsuspecting-immensely satisfying ending. 

And one last example, from the Batman movie series: Dark Knight Rises. My daughter warned me to wait for the end. She promised I would be satisfied, and she was right. Bruce Wayne lives.

This type of ending works only for some books. I don't think I would have liked Tom Hank's character in Cast Away to have found a way to win back his girl, Kelly Frears. The expected ending had to be. Or, can you imagine, how the ending of Titanic would have been diminished if Leonard DiCaprio's character, Jack Dawson hadn't died? Again, the expected ending had to be. 

I also would not have liked to see Beast from Beauty and the Beast kill Gaston when he had a chance. The neat ending was necessary.

Each story needs the perfect ending. Only you, as the author, can know for sure which ending is appropriate.  But you must satisfy your readers. Insure that the ending of your story is the one and only one that best fits. 

Take a moment and consider your WIP. You probably have an ending in mind. What would happen if--you changed it? 

Would the ending be better with everything neat and tidy? 
Should the ending be the expected one? 
Or do you need to pull the rug out from under the readers feet and go for the gutsy ending?

What would happen if you changed your ending? 

This whole topic came up at our recent Writer's Alley Retreat. I shared my WIP with the group. Julia came to me later and said, "I've been thinking about the ending. What if you did something different?" She had an amazing gutsy ending idea that I totally loved. It took a little time to adjust a few things in the manuscript to allow for the new ending, but it was worth the time.

 *****************************************************************************************

If you found any typos in today's post...sorry about that. 

Mary has moved to Michigan with her husband, closer to her three college kids. She misses the mountains of Montana, but loves seeing family more often. She writes young adult mystery/adventure Christian fiction, is honing marketing and writing skills, and loves to pen missionary and Bible adventure stories on her ministry blog, God Loves Kids.

Visit Mary at her website and her ministry blog to families: God Loves Kids. Or chat on Facebook or Twitter

Six Vital Questions to ask your First Readers

You have a polished draft, and now it’s time to get feedback before submitting to agents or publishing houses.

Those friends and family members who’ve been bugging and bugging you? (When-can-we-read-your-book? Are you finished already?) – finally you have something to offer them, in the hope of garnering solid feedback you can use.

So you hand the manuscript over, ignoring the tumbling free-fall in your gut and the sense that you’ve just placed your newborn child tenderly in the middle of an expressway.

Photo by imagerymajestic, freedigitalphotos.net

Then you wait for the feedback.

When it comes, it sounds like this.

“Oh, I loved it. I loved it so much.”

“You are such a talented writer.”

“This was a great story. Really great. Wow – just wonderful.”

Flattering? Yes.

Affirming? Absolutely.

Helpful?

Not so much.

The problem here is that most people you ask for feedback (experienced critiquers aside)… well, they know you, and they love you.

They will be kind.

Maybe they did honestly enjoy the book. They may have sensed that some parts were a little “off”, or not quite there, but either they haven’t thought through their response deeply enough to analyze exactly what was lacking, or they simply feel it would be rude to point out any deficiencies.

Generalized praise may make you feel good, but what’s the point if it’s not even a truly accurate indication of what that person thought? Remember, the purpose of engaging a first reader is to make your book better, not to make you feel better. (Click to tweet.)

You must give your first readers permission to give honest feedback.

Image by David Castillo Dominici,
freedigitalphotos.net

What’s more, you need to do this in a practical way. Don’t just say, “Oh, and please feel free to tell me what you REALLY think!” because the majority of people will be too polite to take you up on that. It’s like asking your best friend what she really thought of your 10-year-old daughter’s debut karaoke performance.

Yeah, it stank, but absolutely NO-ONE who loves you is going to tell you that.

The instinct to preserve the feelings of a friend runs very deep.

On the other side of the equation you have zealous Aunt Harriet, who is a whiz at spotting punctuation errors and spelling slips, and will tell you with relish that you used the wrong form of the word “you’re” on pages 39, 117, and 248.

All of which is well-intentioned, but equally unhelpful. There’s simply no use doing line edits with a fine-tooth comb if your plot is fundamentally flawed and a third of the book has to be rewritten from scratch.

To elicit the truly helpful responses, therefore, you must dig them out. Ask specific questions. This achieves three things:

      1.     It helps the reader focus on the big picture.

      2.     It helps him/ her be analytical about what worked and didn’t work, and why.

      3.     It gives him/her practical permission to give specific feedback.

What questions should you ask? Keep it short and simple.

Here’s some I’ve used.

1. Did the characters’ actions ring true? (Did you understand the motivations behind what they did?)

2. Which parts felt slow or lost your interest?

3. Were there any parts that didn’t make sense to you?

4. What are the strongest and weakest aspects of the book?

5. What (if anything) took you by surprise?

6. Did you find the ending satisfying?

Face-to-face questioning is confronting, and people will shirk from total honesty. A better approach would be to print out a one-page sheet with spaces after each question, and give it to the reader with your manuscript. Your readers will take this responsibility quite seriously. It’s validating for your first reader to know that you truly desire their thought-out opinion, not just a pat on the back and a bit of ego-stroking. 

By asking specific questions, you bypass the emotional pressure of thrusting your newborn manuscript into a friend’s arms and asking with breathless hope, “Do you love it as much as I do?”

Do your book a favor, and get some REAL feedback.

Have you ever done this? What questions would YOU ask?

Tweetables:

Is your first reader telling the truth when she says she loves your book? Find out here. (Click to Tweet)

Six vital questions to ask your first readers: (Click to Tweet)

Do your book a favour, and get some REAL feedback. Here’s how: (Click to Tweet)

Karen Schravemade lives in Australia, where she mothers by day and transforms into a fearless blogger by night. Her popular creative home-making blog, A house full of sunshine, reaches over 20,000 readers a month. She's a Genesis finalist for women's fiction and is represented by Rachel Kent of Books & Such. Find her on Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.

Six Vital Questions to ask your First Readers

You have a polished draft, and now it’s time to get feedback before submitting to agents or publishing houses.

Those friends and family members who’ve been bugging and bugging you? (When-can-we-read-your-book? Are you finished already?) – finally you have something to offer them, in the hope of garnering solid feedback you can use.

So you hand the manuscript over, ignoring the tumbling free-fall in your gut and the sense that you’ve just placed your newborn child tenderly in the middle of an expressway.

Photo by imagerymajestic, freedigitalphotos.net

Then you wait for the feedback.

When it comes, it sounds like this.

“Oh, I loved it. I loved it so much.”

“You are such a talented writer.”

“This was a great story. Really great. Wow – just wonderful.”

Flattering? Yes.

Affirming? Absolutely.

Helpful?

Not so much.

The problem here is that most people you ask for feedback (experienced critiquers aside)… well, they know you, and they love you.

They will be kind.

Maybe they did honestly enjoy the book. They may have sensed that some parts were a little “off”, or not quite there, but either they haven’t thought through their response deeply enough to analyze exactly what was lacking, or they simply feel it would be rude to point out any deficiencies.

Generalized praise may make you feel good, but what’s the point if it’s not even a truly accurate indication of what that person thought? Remember, the purpose of engaging a first reader is to make your book better, not to make you feel better. (Click to tweet.)

You must give your first readers permission to give honest feedback.

Image by David Castillo Dominici,
freedigitalphotos.net

What’s more, you need to do this in a practical way. Don’t just say, “Oh, and please feel free to tell me what you REALLY think!” because the majority of people will be too polite to take you up on that. It’s like asking your best friend what she really thought of your 10-year-old daughter’s debut karaoke performance.

Yeah, it stank, but absolutely NO-ONE who loves you is going to tell you that.

The instinct to preserve the feelings of a friend runs very deep.

On the other side of the equation you have zealous Aunt Harriet, who is a whiz at spotting punctuation errors and spelling slips, and will tell you with relish that you used the wrong form of the word “you’re” on pages 39, 117, and 248.

All of which is well-intentioned, but equally unhelpful. There’s simply no use doing line edits with a fine-tooth comb if your plot is fundamentally flawed and a third of the book has to be rewritten from scratch.

To elicit the truly helpful responses, therefore, you must dig them out. Ask specific questions. This achieves three things:

      1.     It helps the reader focus on the big picture.

      2.     It helps him/ her be analytical about what worked and didn’t work, and why.

      3.     It gives him/her practical permission to give specific feedback.

What questions should you ask? Keep it short and simple.

Here’s some I’ve used.

1. Did the characters’ actions ring true? (Did you understand the motivations behind what they did?)

2. Which parts felt slow or lost your interest?

3. Were there any parts that didn’t make sense to you?

4. What are the strongest and weakest aspects of the book?

5. What (if anything) took you by surprise?

6. Did you find the ending satisfying?

Face-to-face questioning is confronting, and people will shirk from total honesty. A better approach would be to print out a one-page sheet with spaces after each question, and give it to the reader with your manuscript. Your readers will take this responsibility quite seriously. It’s validating for your first reader to know that you truly desire their thought-out opinion, not just a pat on the back and a bit of ego-stroking. 

By asking specific questions, you bypass the emotional pressure of thrusting your newborn manuscript into a friend’s arms and asking with breathless hope, “Do you love it as much as I do?”

Do your book a favor, and get some REAL feedback.

Have you ever done this? What questions would YOU ask?

Tweetables:

Is your first reader telling the truth when she says she loves your book? Find out here. (Click to Tweet)

Six vital questions to ask your first readers: (Click to Tweet)

Do your book a favour, and get some REAL feedback. Here’s how: (Click to Tweet)

Karen Schravemade lives in Australia. When she's not chasing after three small children, she spends her spare minutes daydreaming about the intricate lives of characters who don't actually exist. Find her on her website and Twitter.

Before you type THE END: Creating emotional resonance in your final scenes

I'm freshly back from my globe-trotting adventures, happy to be with my kids again, and extremely jet-lagged. Enjoy this post from the treasure-chest of the Alley archives.

***

You enjoyed the book. You really did. The author’s voice was strong; the opening scene hooked you; the characters beckoned you in; the plot kept you turning pages.

Then you reached the ending.

Anti-climactic would sum it up. There was simply nothing… memorable about it. The author tied up the plot threads neatly, sure, but it was done with a businesslike air that left you cold. Story’s over; thanks for your company; now back to real life with you, and better be quick about it – the kids are whining and you haven’t started dinner yet.

Yeah, you might think about those characters once or twice over the days ahead, but is this a story you’re going to rave about to your friends?

Probably not.

The brutal truth is that a story is only as good as its ending. Endings matter. They’re the final impression you leave with your reader. The part of the story that lingers – or fails to do so – in a reader’s mind. Dash off a forgettable ending, and chances are the reader will soon forget the rest of the book as well.

In this post I talked about creating twist endings – those unexpected reveals that change the way we perceive a story as a whole. This week I’d like to approach the topic from a different angle entirely.

Many great novels don’t end with a twist – and yet they still give us pause, striking some note deep within that feels like truth, taking us to a place where rows of type transmute into something bigger than the fictional world; something that imprints itself on our spirit.

These are the stories that make us want to cling a few minutes longer to the world of the author’s creation instead of leaving it behind. The stories we can’t stop thinking about. The ones we can’t stop talking about.

I believe these endings all have one thing in common.

Emotional resonance.

Stories offer something that life cannot always give. Closure. A sense of completion, of finality. A sense that we’ve been on a journey, and that the journey has had a purpose. The best endings contain a largeness that expands beyond the lives of the characters we’ve walked beside. Such endings illuminate not just the themes of the book, but something about our own lives, our own experience.

According to http://www.thefreedictionary.com, resonance can be defined as:

Richness or significance, especially in evoking an association or strong emotion

freedigitalphotos.net

Or, acoustically speaking:

Intensification and prolongation of sound, especially of a musical tone, produced by sympathetic vibration.

To me, the idea of “sympathetic vibration” is key. When a musician draws a bow across a cello, the strings vibrate, creating sound. But energy also passes into the body of the instrument, causing the air and wood to vibrate at the same frequency. The richness of tone that results is known as resonance.

Us authors have the chance to play words like musicians. For an ending to resonate emotionally, it needs to work in frequency with notes played much earlier in the story.

The best endings contain something of the beginning. They give us a sense of completion – of coming full circle.

Let’s look at four ways to do this.

1. A resonant phrase

At the beginning of The Kite Runner, the protagonist, Amir, enters a kite-fighting tournament with his servant Hassan. They win – a victory that symbolizes to Amir the chance to finally win his father’s approval. But the victory will not be complete until they run down the felled kite of their final opponent. Knowing how much it means to Amir, Hassan offers to run the kite for him.

“Hassan!” I called. “Come back with it!”

He was already turning the street corner, his rubber boots kicking up snow. He stopped, turned. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “For you a thousand times over!” he said. Then he smiled his Hassan smile and disappeared around the corner. The next time I saw him smile unabashedly like that was twenty-six years later, in a faded Polaroid photograph.

Amir follows his servant and witnesses something so shocking it will forever after define him as a person. He has the chance to step in and protect Hassan, but in cowardice he chooses instead to run away.

Many years later, grown and living in America, Amir begins the walk toward redemption through his efforts to help Sohrab, Hassan’s war-scarred son. In the book’s final scene, Amir and Sohrab are at a kite-fighting tournament. Amir turns to the troubled boy.

“Do you want me to run that kite for you?”

His Adam’s apple rose and fell as he swallowed. The wind lifted his hair. I thought I saw him nod.

“For you, a thousand times over,” I heard myself say.

Then I turned and ran.

A simple phrase that resonates with meaning, because we know all it signifies to the protagonist. Regret and redemption, past and present: all brought full circle in those few significant words.

2. A resonant action

Early in Dale Cramer’s novel Bad Ground, the character of Snake shares a childhood memory of sitting at his mother’s feet while she plays with a hank of his hair, circling her fingertip round and round a single spot on his scalp. It’s a caress that holds significance because she uses it only with him.

At the end of the novel, the same character is so badly burned he has no hair. His mother has been paralyzed for years, incapable of communication or movement beyond the occasional raised finger. Snake, fully grown now, sits on the floor at his mother’s feet and places her hand on his bald head. Slowly, very slowly, the paralysed woman begins to trace circles on her son’s bald head with her finger, just as she used to do to when he was young.

I’ll admit it – the scene brought tears to my eyes. Without the earlier emotional set-up, a simple action like this would not have resonated so deeply with me as a reader.

3. A resonant image

At the beginning of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, a snowstorm forces Dr David Henry to deliver his own twins. The little boy is born normal; the girl has Down Syndrome. In a split second decision that will change all of their lives forever, the father asks the nurse to take away the disabled child and put her in an institution, telling his wife that the baby died in childbirth.

At the end of the book, the existence of the lost sister, Phoebe – now a young woman – is finally uncovered. Paul, the twin who remained, takes Phoebe to visit their father’s grave.

Everything slowed, until the whole world was caught in this single hovering moment. Paul stood very still, waiting to see what would happen next.

For a few seconds, nothing at all.

Then Phoebe turned, slowly, and smoothed her wrinkled skirt.

A simple gesture, yet it set the world back in motion.

Paul noted how short and clipped her fingernails were, how delicate her wrist looked against the granite headstone. His sister’s hands were small, just like their mother’s. He walked across the grass and touched her shoulder, to take her home.

It’s a simple image that brings closure. More than two decades after the baby girl was sent away from home and family, in secret, we are left with the image of the young man finally taking his twin sister home. The symbolism resonates with us because we’ve walked the journey of what came before.

4. A resonant emotional arc

In The Secret Life of Bees, fourteen-year-old Lily craves one thing: the love of her dead mother. Her journey takes her to the home of three beekeeping sisters, where she finds acceptance. In the final scene of the novel, after a confrontation with her abusive father, Lily says:

I watched till he was gone from sight, then turned and looked at August and Rosaleen and the Daughters on the porch. This is the moment I remember clearest of all – how I stood in the driveway looking back at them. I remember the sight of them standing there waiting. All these women, all this love, waiting.

Then, in the last lines of the novel, the author draws the connection with Lily’s emotional journey to create a final note of resonance.

This is the autumn of wonders, yet every day, every single day, I go back to that burned afternoon in August when T. Ray left. I go back to that one moment when I stood in the driveway with small rocks and clumps of dirt around my feet and looked back at the porch. And there they were. All these mothers. I have more mothers than any eight girls off the street. They are the moons shining over me.

In those last lines, we see the significance of the story. It’s always been about Lily’s search for a mother. And there they are. They’ve been there all along. It’s a profound realisation.

***

In each of these examples, the author has taken the time to lay the emotional groundwork early on. Then, when these motifs are revisited at the end, they hold an instant and powerful significance to the reader. This brings a fullness and richness to the final scenes – a resonance – that cannot be achieved any other way.

Let’s talk. Which endings have resonated with you emotionally? Can you tell us why? Do share! 

Karen Schravemade lives in Australia. When she's not chasing after three small children, she spends her spare minutes daydreaming about the intricate lives of characters who don't actually exist. Find her on her website and Twitter.

TWEETABLES

A story is only as good as its ending. 4 keys to achieving emotional resonance in your final scenes: Click to Tweet

The best endings contain something of the beginning. They give us a sense of completion – of coming full circle. Click to Tweet 

For an ending to resonate emotionally, it needs to work in frequency with notes played much earlier in the story. Click to Tweet 

Before you type THE END: Creating emotional resonance in your final scenes

I'm freshly back from my globe-trotting adventures, happy to be with my kids again, and extremely jet-lagged. Enjoy this post from the treasure-chest of the Alley archives.

***

You enjoyed the book. You really did. The author’s voice was strong; the opening scene hooked you; the characters beckoned you in; the plot kept you turning pages.

Then you reached the ending.

Anti-climactic would sum it up. There was simply nothing… memorable about it. The author tied up the plot threads neatly, sure, but it was done with a businesslike air that left you cold. Story’s over; thanks for your company; now back to real life with you, and better be quick about it – the kids are whining and you haven’t started dinner yet.

Yeah, you might think about those characters once or twice over the days ahead, but is this a story you’re going to rave about to your friends?

Probably not.

The brutal truth is that a story is only as good as its ending. Endings matter. They’re the final impression you leave with your reader. The part of the story that lingers – or fails to do so – in a reader’s mind. Dash off a forgettable ending, and chances are the reader will soon forget the rest of the book as well.

In this post I talked about creating twist endings – those unexpected reveals that change the way we perceive a story as a whole. This week I’d like to approach the topic from a different angle entirely.

Many great novels don’t end with a twist – and yet they still give us pause, striking some note deep within that feels like truth, taking us to a place where rows of type transmute into something bigger than the fictional world; something that imprints itself on our spirit.

These are the stories that make us want to cling a few minutes longer to the world of the author’s creation instead of leaving it behind. The stories we can’t stop thinking about. The ones we can’t stop talking about.

I believe these endings all have one thing in common.

Emotional resonance.

Stories offer something that life cannot always give. Closure. A sense of completion, of finality. A sense that we’ve been on a journey, and that the journey has had a purpose. The best endings contain a largeness that expands beyond the lives of the characters we’ve walked beside. Such endings illuminate not just the themes of the book, but something about our own lives, our own experience.

According to http://www.thefreedictionary.com, resonance can be defined as:

Richness or significance, especially in evoking an association or strong emotion

freedigitalphotos.net

Or, acoustically speaking:

Intensification and prolongation of sound, especially of a musical tone, produced by sympathetic vibration.

To me, the idea of “sympathetic vibration” is key. When a musician draws a bow across a cello, the strings vibrate, creating sound. But energy also passes into the body of the instrument, causing the air and wood to vibrate at the same frequency. The richness of tone that results is known as resonance.

Us authors have the chance to play words like musicians. For an ending to resonate emotionally, it needs to work in frequency with notes played much earlier in the story.

The best endings contain something of the beginning. They give us a sense of completion – of coming full circle.

Let’s look at four ways to do this.

1. A resonant phrase

At the beginning of The Kite Runner, the protagonist, Amir, enters a kite-fighting tournament with his servant Hassan. They win – a victory that symbolizes to Amir the chance to finally win his father’s approval. But the victory will not be complete until they run down the felled kite of their final opponent. Knowing how much it means to Amir, Hassan offers to run the kite for him.

“Hassan!” I called. “Come back with it!”

He was already turning the street corner, his rubber boots kicking up snow. He stopped, turned. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “For you a thousand times over!” he said. Then he smiled his Hassan smile and disappeared around the corner. The next time I saw him smile unabashedly like that was twenty-six years later, in a faded Polaroid photograph.

Amir follows his servant and witnesses something so shocking it will forever after define him as a person. He has the chance to step in and protect Hassan, but in cowardice he chooses instead to run away.

Many years later, grown and living in America, Amir begins the walk toward redemption through his efforts to help Sohrab, Hassan’s war-scarred son. In the book’s final scene, Amir and Sohrab are at a kite-fighting tournament. Amir turns to the troubled boy.

“Do you want me to run that kite for you?”

His Adam’s apple rose and fell as he swallowed. The wind lifted his hair. I thought I saw him nod.

“For you, a thousand times over,” I heard myself say.

Then I turned and ran.

A simple phrase that resonates with meaning, because we know all it signifies to the protagonist. Regret and redemption, past and present: all brought full circle in those few significant words.

2. A resonant action

Early in Dale Cramer’s novel Bad Ground, the character of Snake shares a childhood memory of sitting at his mother’s feet while she plays with a hank of his hair, circling her fingertip round and round a single spot on his scalp. It’s a caress that holds significance because she uses it only with him.

At the end of the novel, the same character is so badly burned he has no hair. His mother has been paralyzed for years, incapable of communication or movement beyond the occasional raised finger. Snake, fully grown now, sits on the floor at his mother’s feet and places her hand on his bald head. Slowly, very slowly, the paralysed woman begins to trace circles on her son’s bald head with her finger, just as she used to do to when he was young.

I’ll admit it – the scene brought tears to my eyes. Without the earlier emotional set-up, a simple action like this would not have resonated so deeply with me as a reader.

3. A resonant image

At the beginning of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, a snowstorm forces Dr David Henry to deliver his own twins. The little boy is born normal; the girl has Down Syndrome. In a split second decision that will change all of their lives forever, the father asks the nurse to take away the disabled child and put her in an institution, telling his wife that the baby died in childbirth.

At the end of the book, the existence of the lost sister, Phoebe – now a young woman – is finally uncovered. Paul, the twin who remained, takes Phoebe to visit their father’s grave.

Everything slowed, until the whole world was caught in this single hovering moment. Paul stood very still, waiting to see what would happen next.

For a few seconds, nothing at all.

Then Phoebe turned, slowly, and smoothed her wrinkled skirt.

A simple gesture, yet it set the world back in motion.

Paul noted how short and clipped her fingernails were, how delicate her wrist looked against the granite headstone. His sister’s hands were small, just like their mother’s. He walked across the grass and touched her shoulder, to take her home.

It’s a simple image that brings closure. More than two decades after the baby girl was sent away from home and family, in secret, we are left with the image of the young man finally taking his twin sister home. The symbolism resonates with us because we’ve walked the journey of what came before.

4. A resonant emotional arc

In The Secret Life of Bees, fourteen-year-old Lily craves one thing: the love of her dead mother. Her journey takes her to the home of three beekeeping sisters, where she finds acceptance. In the final scene of the novel, after a confrontation with her abusive father, Lily says:

I watched till he was gone from sight, then turned and looked at August and Rosaleen and the Daughters on the porch. This is the moment I remember clearest of all – how I stood in the driveway looking back at them. I remember the sight of them standing there waiting. All these women, all this love, waiting.

Then, in the last lines of the novel, the author draws the connection with Lily’s emotional journey to create a final note of resonance.

This is the autumn of wonders, yet every day, every single day, I go back to that burned afternoon in August when T. Ray left. I go back to that one moment when I stood in the driveway with small rocks and clumps of dirt around my feet and looked back at the porch. And there they were. All these mothers. I have more mothers than any eight girls off the street. They are the moons shining over me.

In those last lines, we see the significance of the story. It’s always been about Lily’s search for a mother. And there they are. They’ve been there all along. It’s a profound realisation.

***

In each of these examples, the author has taken the time to lay the emotional groundwork early on. Then, when these motifs are revisited at the end, they hold an instant and powerful significance to the reader. This brings a fullness and richness to the final scenes – a resonance – that cannot be achieved any other way.

Let’s talk. Which endings have resonated with you emotionally? Can you tell us why? Do share! 

Karen Schravemade lives in Australia. When she's not chasing after three small children, she spends her spare minutes daydreaming about the intricate lives of characters who don't actually exist. Find her on her website and Twitter.

 

TWEETABLES

A story is only as good as its ending. 4 keys to achieving emotional resonance in your final scenes: Click to Tweet

The best endings contain something of the beginning. They give us a sense of completion – of coming full circle. Click to Tweet 

For an ending to resonate emotionally, it needs to work in frequency with notes played much earlier in the story. Click to Tweet