Power Positions

About a week ago, Nancy Kress talked about something that made my brain get 2x bigger: Power positions in stories.

Her point: endings are powerful. They are the power position. All endings.

She meant don’t pull your punches when you get to the end of anything. Drive it through.

This means:

Sentence level. The last word is a powerful word. Don’t end on a word or phrase that doesn’t matter.
Paragraph level. The last sentence is a powerful sentence. Make it fierce.
Scene level. The last paragraph in a...