The ending makes the story. This is what the audience files out of the theater talking about. This is what sticks with the reader after he/ she’s put it down. Blow the ending, you blow the story. No pressure.

Any (non-short) story worth its salt has opened up multiple, mutually-reinforcing threads that the audience/ reader is squirming to see satisfactorily resolved. This leaves us with the considerable task of formulating the ideal beat that’ll bring them all into a fitting, seamless, climactic collision that addresses all their burning questions, and either answers them or (purposefully) leaves them open. Whew!

As I chip away at my ending, I find myself falling into a lot of traps, such as…

I’m shoehorning in bits of dialog here and there to complete some character arcs. I know I should be doing this with action that is timely and organic to the plot.

I’m bringing multiple events together, into relationships that border on coincidental and convenient, in order to conclude them simultaneously. I’m afraid this might set off the WTF alarm.

My closing sequences seem lengthy and muddled, like a long-winded, pedantic closing statement, making sure to rehash every point and remind the audience of what they’ve been watching, why it was important, and the reasons why it’s finishing this way. Is there a way to do more with less?

Some of my story threads are just kinda… fizzling out.  It seems their endings don’t do justice to their setups and influences on the overall story. Can they all go out with a bang? Or at least in a more suitable way, that’s commensurate with their narrative functions? And how will I know what is “commensurate?”

And the all-inclusive: will they see this coming? Are the outcomes of these elements too predictable and direct to be worth the price of admission? In my efforts to keep things logically consistent, have I created something so sensibly dull that it won’t engage the reader/ viewer?

It seems that the key to getting through this one is to not be hesitant (or afraid) to straighten out the ending and then work backwards from there. I want as effective a denouement as I can create, so if that means betraying something that came at the beginning or in the middle, and I have to go back and alter that, so be it. I may have some serious overhauling ahead, but I believe it’ll be worth it. Maybe a willingness to do this is one of those things that separate the pro from the amateur? (Translation: I hope I’m on to something with this.)

What do you think? What kinds of problems have you had with endings? Let me know below!