Random Writing Tip #7: The End

While the beginning of a story is important–problems to solve, challenges to overcome, interesting characters to meet–the way you decide to end your story is even more important. Judging by the many stories that are begun but never finished, it is also much more difficult.

The ending of a story usually contains the climax, which is the most exciting and important part of the story, the point that everything previous has been building to. It also holds the resolution, where loose threads of the story are tied up, characters are allowed to sit back and breathe for a moment, and we say goodbye to the world of the story.

If you’ve planned your story properly, everything that came before has been building to your ending. That doesn’t mean your ending shouldn’t be predictable, but at the same time, it shouldn’t seem to come out of nowhere. If you leave your readers with a sense of inevitability, a sense that “of course things had to happend that way,” you have a good ending.