Writing a book can be quite a complex and interesting journey full of many things to do and can actually be a lot longer than you might think. Many stories do a great job of setting the plot up and executing it, but fall short in the resolution and ending. This is something that can really damage the reader perception of your story and can make people feel like they want something more than what they’ve gotten. If you want to avoid the readers feeling this way, then here’s how you can write a satisfying ending to your book that will actually excite people and make them interested in reading your other works rather than hit you with a low review.
1. Tie Things Up Without Rushing
One of the most important elements of a satisfying ending is to ensure that you work to tie up any loose ends. Readers will likely have many questions for you regarding elements and events that occurred in your story and so they’ll want to know precisely what happened and they’ll want those pressing answers. If you don’t answer those things in a proper manner, then readers will feel very unsatisfied and it won’t really be good for your story.
How can you ensure that you are tying loose ends effectively? Well, my recommendation is that you go back through your manuscript and identify the key conflicts as well as any key questions or situations that occurred. Then, write those down on a separate piece of paper and go back through the story to see if anything was answered properly yet or not. It’s important to set the answers up in a proper way.
You also want to avoid rushing the ending, as rushing through the climax and resolution in an attempt to just finish the story will be bad for reader perception. Readers oftentimes can tell if an author has done this and it’s not really great for your story’s quality. You want to take your time with the ending but you also don’t want to make it too slow because you’ll risk readers getting annoyed at you for not finishing the story at a natural point.
You don’t have to answer everything though, especially if you’re going to be writing out a series. If you want to learn how to plan a fantasy series, check out this post!
2. Fill it With Emotion
Reading a story for most people is something like an emotional journey with the characters. A satisfying ending should deliver an emotional payoff that is consistent with the themes of the story and the journey of the protagonists. This is the part where your characters are reflecting on what has changed, how they’ve grown, what they’ve overcome, etc…
In order to create an emotional impact, you want to understand your character’s arc. The character arc is basically the way a character changes from the start of the story to the end of the story. The ending should reflect how the arc has changed and how it impacts the story going forward. If you want to learn how to write a proper character arc, then check out this post!
You want to also try and resolve any internal conflicts that existed throughout the story or at least address them if they’ve changed for the character. You want to show maybe the character having advanced beyond that particular internal conflict or maybe they’ve succumbed to the fear. If you want to learn how to write a proper internal conflict, then check out this post.
You want the reader to walk away from the story having felt relieved but also satisfied with the ending from an emotional perspective especially. If the reader cannot feel proper emotions towards the story, then they won’t be very apt to continue or they may feel like they unfortunately wasted time. You want the reader to feel the emotion!
3. Don’t Switch Up Your Themes
The theme of your story is a very important component of the story and can really impact a lot of the way readers perceive your overall work. Whether your theme is positive or negative isn’t what’s important; rather, what’s important is that you’re sticking to your themes and that you’re actually going to reinforce those themes by the end. If they change, you need to justify it from a story/narrative perspective, otherwise it’ll feel very jarring for your readers. If you want to learn how to work with themes in a book, then check out this post.
You want to identify your core theme and think about the main theme of your story. What sort of idea have you been exploring throughout the story and through your characters? How does the protagonist tie into the theme?
You don’t really want to jarringly cut your theme out at the very end. Maybe if there’s a sequel and it sets things up for the next book, you might get away with that. However, it’ll just feel sudden and out of place for the reader. You want to find a resolution that aligns well with your themes for a more effective delivery.
4. Balance Surprise with Satisfaction
One way that you can deliver a memorable ending is to find a balance between surprising your readers while still letting them leave with a satisfying conclusion. An ending that is too predictable can feel highly underwhelming but one that’s too shocking can feel very disconnected from the rest of the story. The best ending is the type that strikes a balance by providing a twist that is shocking but could be plausible if a reader thought of it.
You want to plant hints at the resolution early on by using tools like foreshadowing where you drop subtle details that will later come up and help enhance the ending. When the surprise comes, things should feel like they’ve clicked in place and it shouldn’t feel like something impossible next to the overall plot. If you want to learn about foreshadowing in books, check out this post!
You also want to make sure you’re avoiding cheap twists that make no sense. Including a plot twist for the sake of including a plot twist isn’t something positive and can actually detract from your story or make it feel cheap.
You want to give readers an ending that they didn’t see coming, but can piece together if they think about while giving them an ending that they didn’t even know they wanted. The ending is important, so don’t try to do too much and don’t try to do too little.
5. Leave Room for Interpretation or Continuation (If Appropriate)
Although tying up loose ends is something that can be really helpful for your story, sometimes giving everything all at once can be a bit too much and might detract from your overall story. Some stories that explore more complex topics and emotions might actually benefit from having the reader engage more with the material than just being told how everything is resolved.
An open-ended resolution might leave some things open and show how the story reflects the ideas of moral ambiguity. You might also try to hint at future possibilities, especially if you’re writing multiple books about the same storyline. Although for many it can be rough to deal with a cliffhanger, it’s important to know that sometimes, giving away everything won’t leave readers wanting to read much into the second book or beyond. You want to give some resolution while leaving things open in this case.
You might also want to think about giving readers something to think about. A thought-provoking ending might create a dialogue/discussion around your book that will intrigue people more than if you just handed them all the answers and endings.
Conclusion
A satisfying ending is more than just wrapping up the plot. You also need to consider emotions, the themes, and the ways you can make the ending a bit thought-provoking and interesting. Ultimately, the ending is what your readers will be left off with, so you want to ensure that it’s not going to fall flat and that it’ll actually be interesting and engaging.
Before you head on out, be sure to check out my series, The Fallen Age Saga and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter so you can get updates on all my latest WIPs, book releases, posts and more!