The Place For My Writers Notes

Moseying Along Our Way through Plot and Structure (15)

Once more we venture into the pages of Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell. We're on page 99, about to start walking through Chapter 6 on endings. Plenty of tricks and tools so far, from the LOCK (lead character, objective, confrontation, and knock out), through a disturbance and two doorways of no return, 20 ways to ideas and the filter of passion/potential/precision, hooking the reader, establishing a bond, and forcing the reader into the middle where we find the opposition, adhesive, ARM (action, reaction, more action), stretching the tension and raising the stakes all before we get to endings. Right now are going to look at endings that knock your readers out.

Your ending needs to do two things. It should feel perfect for your novel, and it should surprise your reader. You have to tie up all your loose ends with a flourish that really isn't predictable. You need a knockout ending. Keep the tension on until the last possible moment, making it look like the opposition is going to win. Then let the lead find the strength to fight back with a knockout blow.

Bell recommends adding the "ah!" and the "uh-oh!" The ah comes with the main action of the story wrapped up, and a final scene where something from the hero's personal life is resolved. A little ray of hope.

Quite a few stories also add a sense of foreboding, the "uh-oh!" This is the hand clawing out of the grave, or the other tiny hint that the resolution isn't quite as solid as the hero thinks.

There are three basic endings, the positive ending where the lead gets his objective, the negative ending where the lead loses his objective, and the ambiguous ending where we aren't quite sure. An ambiguous ending needs to cause strong feelings and feel right. It isn't just that we as writers get to skip the ending, it needs to be positively ambiguous. Now, while I've got you confused about that, let me toss in a couple of variations on positive and negative endings. First, the lead may gain his desire but have a negative result. He gets the job, but finds out that losing friends isn't worth it. Or he may lose his desire, but get something better. He lost the job, but kept his pride and self respect. When the hero is on the horns of a dilemma, sacrifice is one of the options.

How do you get these wonderful endings? Bell suggests that we usually don't start with it, but instead, just write towards a generic ending. But when you get close to the end, sit down and make a list of at least ten alternate endings. This is brainstorming time, do it quick and easy. Bell suggests this should take less than 30 minutes. Then set it all aside and let your back brain work on the problem for a day or so. Come back and pick the top four. Push them out a little bit, see where they would go Set aside a little bit again. Then pick the top surprise, and work it into the ending you had planned. Go back and justify it with clues and foreshadowing planted throughout the novel

Tying up loose ends? Well, yes, the end of the novel usually means the loose ends are tied up. But take a look at the ones you have. Are they crucial or ancillary? Try to pick the ones that your readers really need resolved, and make sure you have the scenes or hints to finish them. For some minor ones, have some character explain it. But for others, you may need to work on scenes. Be cautious about epilogues - you really want to put the climax of your story as close to the end of the novel as possible. Incidentally, Bell suggests that finding loose threads is an excellent job for your first readers - listen to their questions and make sure you tie up those loose threads.

Last page resonance. Your last page should make the ending more than satisfying, it needs to be memorable. I know this is the ending, and you may just want to put it away and send it off, but this is a part of the book where you need to focus. Make sure that the language is the best you can do. Sometimes you can have some particularly telling dialogue, but make sure you have hints of it previously. A bit of description may top off the story with reminders of what has been and what may be. Or there's the hint of the character's feelings, his or her hope for tomorrow, reborn. Be gentle with something like that, don't overstate it. Less is more here.

Avoid the final page rush. Bell suggests giving yourself time to daydream throughout writing the novel, and then making sure you keep up your practice of daydreaming when writing the ending. Also, think big. The ending is where you really want to have big bold writing and thoughts, so go for it. Cutting back is easier than trying to stretch writing that is too timid. Finally, take your time with the ending. If you can, avoid writing it under time pressure. Give yourself some slack so that you can write it, rewrite it, and then fix it up again

We actually got through the chapter on endings. Bell's exercises start with analyzing the last couple of chapters from five novels that you like. What kind of endings do they have? Why do you like that kind of thing? You probably will like to write the same kind of ending that you enjoy reading, so take a good hard look at your preferences. It's

Second, Bell suggests thinking about the ending that you had in mind. Go ahead and try writing the climactic scene. You may not use this, but it least it will help you understand where you're headed and what your characters are doing.

The third exercise is to try dreaming up some alternative endings. Start by making a list of ten one line possibilities. Then pick two or three that seem the most interesting, and sketch them in short summaries of 250 words or less.

Fourth, make a list of the loose ends in your novel. Some writers keep a separate document No matter how you got your list, for each one figure out how you are going to tie them up, through scenes, small plot developments, minor characters talking, or whatever.

So there you have it! Endings, in one posting. Of course, next week we'll come back and take a look at scenes, but hey, we've got an overview of all three parts now, right? Beginnings (with their disturbance), middles (through the first doorway of no return), and endings (through the second doorway of no return into the climax).

So write, already.