Question of the Day: How to Find THE END

As an editor, I get a lot of questions from clients, other writers, and all of you. Some of those questions come up so often, I’ve decided to do a blog post on the most common ones. In these posts, I’ll set out a generalized version of the question, along with my answer and the writing theory behind that answer.

Today’s question comes from Rana Fathi and goes like this:

“I tend to get a lot of ideas, want to jump in and write one with no planning (I’m not much of a planner anyway) & then a few scenes into it, I have no idea where the story is going! I don’t like strict structure, so if you have some advice on how to brainstorm endings or maybe working backwards I’d love to hear it!”

Today’s answer goes like this:

I used to struggle with my endings a lot. Part of that was because I didn’t have a really good idea of what I wanted to write, and the other part was because I had absolutely no grounding in story structure. Here’s the process I now use to figure out a good ending to my story. First, I look at my MC’s primary goal. What have they been trying to do this entire book? 

The ending should probably involve them finally achieving their goal, or them realizing that their goal has been bad all along, shifting that goal, and then achieving the new one. If you’re going to change your MC’s goal, the Dark Night of the Soul (aka, the moment when the bad guy has won and the MC needs to look deeply inside themselves, learn the lesson the story has been trying to teach them, and leverage that lesson to finally win – talk more about that in a moment) is a great time to do that.

The next thing I look at is the lesson my character has been trying to learn. Does he keep pushing all his friends away? Does she keep rejecting the magical part of herself which is the only way to actually win the battle? Does their naiveté keep them falling for the bad guy’s lies time, after time, after time? 

The Dark Night of the Soul (DNoTS) is the beginning of the end, and that’s the moment where the fact that they haven’t learned this lesson bites them. Hard. In Prince Caspian, this is the moment where King Peter’s pride means they suffer utter defeat at the castle and have to retreat. In several books, this is where the mentor character dies because of the student’s stupidity. In Tangled, this is where Rapunzel realizes that Mother Gothel is a liar and that she is the lost princess. If you can figure out what your character is supposed to be learning and what their fatal flaw will be, you can figure out the first half of your ending: the DNoTS.

After you figure out the DNoTS, you just have to get them out of this really deep hole you’ve dug them into. This is the climax of the story, and functions as the second half of your ending. 

In the climax, they use the lesson they finally managed to digest during the DNoTS to come up against the bad guy who won last time. Because they’ve had the character development which reached its peak in the DNoTS, they are no longer the same person who fell for whatever trick the bad guy used to land them in the DNoTS. This time, they avoid the bad guy’s trap, leverage the skills and lessons they’ve used throughout the story, and win the battle! This can be a literal battle, like Peter beating Miraz and subsequently winning the battle with Aslan’s help, or this can be more emotional, like Rapunzel standing up to Mother Gothel in Tangled. They get out of the hole, beat the bad guy (the climax of the story), and then you just have to write one more scene that tells the reader what the new normal is. 

TLDR: What is your character’s goal? How can they fail so spectacularly at it they’ll never see the light of day again? How can you dig them out of that hole? Write a resolution, and you’re done.