Writing About Writing: The End

A lot of people say that the hardest thing about writing a book (or script, or comic) is starting it.

Choosing where to begin, not to mention how the story should start, picking a good opening line to hook the readers, and of course the process of writing an entire story from start to finish. It's a daunting challenge. However, in my opinion there is something even more important: How to end it.

Everyone can name at least one Franchise that should have ended way before it did. The Wheel of Time, The Name of the Wind, The Fast and the Furious movies (what number are they even on now?), Scream... the lists are endless.

It does feel a bit hypocritical for me to be writing about this, given that the dedication of my most recent book specifically calls out my editor/Beloved for laughing at me when I swore the first book of a Duology + Off-Page Anthology was going to be a stand-alone.

She's not wrong, either. I have several series that I was sure would be a standalone book, only to suffer an attack of the Plot Bunnies or to be ambushed by enthusiastic fans, or just have a bunch of worldbuilding short stories that didn't quite fit into the book itself, that I felt still needed to be told. It's hard to know when to stop, especially when it's something you love and that you want other people to love, too.

But you do need to know when to stop, and how to end a series, or you wind up starting a continuation that will take even longer and be even harder to stop.

In my recent anthology, I toyed with the idea of a final short story based on the next generation. I ultimately discarded that idea, because while I did mention said next generation in the epilogue of the Duology, writing a few thousand words about them would have been a set up for a sequel about them. I was trying to finish a series, not start a new one.

The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, for instance, relied far too much on fan service to carry a weakened plot that could have been a lot stronger if it had been set in a time and place decently removed from the Original Trilogy. Instead, it was just close enough to feel repetitive, and just far enough that it struggled to stand on its own. The writers caving to the loudest voices in Fandom about key plot points didn't help, either, and tying the new characters to the old ones didn't feel authentic, it felt forced.

Fans wanted a Sequel Trilogy, but if you compare the popularity of Star Wars movies and TV shows based around other characters vs a third Trilogy focused around the Skywalker family, it serves as an illustration that it was time for that singular focus to end.

Choosing where and when to end a story can be hard, especially when you keep thinking that you can push the ending back by just one more event.

Why end with the wedding when you can end with the first child, or with them returning home? Or you could add an epilogue with the next generation. Or maybe that throwaway line when they're celebrating victory could have a bigger meaning...

Pick a point where the story is over, whether permanently or until the sequel. Once you have that point, stick to it like velcro. The good kind of velcro, where it takes five minutes of cursing and a brace position to un-grip it. That is your ending.

If you're thinking about a sequel, write the first couple of chapters and plot out what you want to happen, before you make any announcents. Sometimes they'll take longer than you think. Sometimes you lose steam halfway through. George RR Martin is an excellent example of what happens when you hype up sequels before you've started writing them...

The other bonus of picking an end point is that it gives you a target to aim for. You don't have to have the ending written, and in the case of a series it's often better if you leave some flexibility, in case your characters change things around and the original ending no longer quite fits. But having your ending outlined means you have a point that you need to end up at, which you can use to keep yourself on track.

The epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, for instance, was considered something of a let-down because while the series had ended on a hopeful note of a changing world, the epilogue just illustrated how little had changed in nineteen years.

An Ending should wrap up the important plot points, while leaving some of the story to the imagination. Especially if you have spin-offs or sequels planned. No one needs an extra three chapters worth of content detailing what happened to every single character.

One particularly memorable ending (not in a good way) could have been it's own sequel novella, because it was several thousand words of who everyone married, how many children they had, and what happened to those children, cradle to grave. I actually had to go back through the book to be reminded of who some of the characters were, because - silly me! - I hadn't committed the main character's tailor's orphaned cousin's name to memory, and therefore had no clue who the author was talking about.

In my own series, "A Surfeit of Sisterly Affection", Book 1 ends with what could be a nice resolution for a non-main character, but wound up inspiring 4 spin-offs. All four take place after Book 1, and at similar times, but there is very little overlap and they all take place at something of a distance from one another, as well as all being very different character journeys. There's about a month where they're all in the same place and not much happens, but that's the only common factor.

Finally, endings are cathartic.

Two little words, and you can stop typing and look at an entire completed story. Look at you and what you've accomplished! Your baby is ready to face the world (or the editor's pen) all by itself!

You can breathe, and take a night to yourself instead of sitting down with a laptop or notebook and far too much caffeine for a work night.

You've done it, and now you can rest.