Writing a satisfying and surprising ending? It sounds like a conflict in terms. If it’s satisfying, how can it be surprising? That’s the biggest obstacle when writing an ending–an author wants readers to close the book with a feeling that they’ve spent their time well and enjoyed the story while also delivering a story that delights with a surprise. A good ending also encourages readers to look for more books and stories by that author. So what’s a writer to do?
Know your genre. I repeat. KNOW YOUR GENRE.
If I say my book is a mystery and don’t provide a solution for it, mystery readers will definitely be surprised. But they will also feel betrayed. The mystery genre comes with the promise of solving the puzzle in the story.
Authors cannot satisfy readers with their endings if they don’t understand the promises implicit in each genre. A romance in which the heroine doesn’t end up with the hero because she decides she’s better off alone isn’t a romance. You have to know your genre from A to Z. If you write it, you probably like reading it, so you’re are familiar with the rules even if you haven’t sat down and thought about them critically. But you should as a writer. You should also know the endings for the classics in your genre and the typical ending for currently published books.
Review endings that surprised you.
This is probably the best way to dissect a good ending. What endings have surprised you and yet left you satisfied? Treat the dissection like an assignment for a class. Underline the elements the author used. Take notes about why it worked.
The Midnight Visitor by Robert Arthur
My sixth grade reading teacher read my class this very short story, and it has always stayed with me because the ending was so surprising. Because it’s short, it’s easy to analyze.
Fowler is a writer who has spent an evening with spy Ausable to do research. Ausable is fat and sloppy, the last person Fowler would think of as a spy. Ausuable tells him he’s receiving important papers that night, so Fowler will finally see some real spy stuff.
But when Ausable and Fowler return to Ausable’s hotel room they find an intruder holding a gun. Max has come for the papers. But instead of acting afraid, Ausable is simply irritated. Max is the second person in a month to gain access to his room from a balcony that runs for Ausable’s room to an empty room two doors down.
At this point, the reader is wondering if Fowler will do something heroic or if Ausable will prove he really is a great spy. Max talks about the papers and Ausable complains about the balcony until there is a knock at the door. Ausable says it’s the police. He asked them to check on him at the time he was supposed to receive the papers. Max tells him to get rid of them or he’ll kill Ausable and Fowler and risk taking on the police. He’ll wait on the balcony.
So Ausable has proved himself to be a clever spy after all. This meets readers expectations for a spy story. Readers may be expecting a shoot out, or the police waiting on the balcony for Max. But Mr. Arthur doesn’t leave it at that.
Max steps out the window and screams once. Ausable opens the door to a waiter and accepts the drink he brings in. The waiter leaves. Fowler is worried Max will return.
“No,” said Ausable, “he won’t return. You see, my young friend, there is no balcony.”
In this very brief story, Mr. Arthur meets the expectations of his genre and then adds a surprise that still works within the genre.
Which have endings have surprised you?
