Tips to Creating an Ending

One of the most difficult challenges for writers is finding a way to conclude their story. Last night I was thinking about one for my short story, and I came up with an effective and simple way to wrap it up.

Plan your ending before you start your writing.

First off, try not come up with a conclusion for your story after writing everything up to the ending. You need to know how your story will end before you write so you can come to a conclusion supported throughout the entire story, or at least parts of it. I come up with my endings after writing my beginning, so I at least have covered how to start and finish my story..
The resolution is crucial and should be given at least an effective starting point before you write, which you may build off of or twist as you get more ideas while progressing with your story.

My method for creating a conclusion.

Now, if this is going to happen, you must come up with as many possible outcomes as you can and answer many simple questions about your ending. Now think of a few obvious ways a writer could end his/her book. Then ask these endings in simple question form if you feel like continuing with them.

In my story I am writing the main character's brother starts becoming malformed and inhuman after a certain series of events with a mysterious rune. Soon, his loving brother is a sick and twisted murdering machine. They live deep in a forest and it is extremely unlikely they will receive or find help. So for possible outcomes, I ask myself these questions:

Will the main character die? No.
Will the main character flee for safety or help? No.
Will the main character kill his brother? No.
Will the main character turn his brother back to normal? Yes.
How?

I just ask a series of questions just like that and explain what will happen. This forces the writer to set a full mind on how they will resolve there story and how specifically it will be gone about.

I hope these guidelines are of some benefit to you; they helped me while I was stuck on my ending, so good luck.

You see I can't do that. I want to have an ending before I do a story, but I usually end up changing the plot and the ending and even the characters, it's just impossible to pull off a perfect ending when you're writing a powerful story. I like your method though, I'll try to apply it, if the story ever ends that is.

Eh... sometimes if you're a good enough writer, you could pull it off, but only if there is some purpose of your writing.

What if you plan an ending, then get sidetracked so the ending you planned no longer makes sense?

It is paradoxical to form a retrospective overview of a story that never sought to be prospective. It is a little like Orpheus turning around too soon to look at Eurydice, and thereby sending her back to the Underworld. It would be acting as though the work pre-existed itself and sensed its end in its very beginnings, as though it were closed, as though it developed in a coherent way, as though it had always existed. I do not see any other way of writing a story, then, than in terms of simulation; rather, in the way Borges reconstitutes a lost civilization from the remains of a library. This is to admit that I can scarcely ask myself the question of a novel's literary versimilitude -- a question I would, indeed, find infinitely difficult to answer. Doubtless when writing a novel one should put oneself in the posiiton of an imaginary traveler who came upon the said text as if it was a lost manuscript and, for want of supporting documents, subsequently strove to reconstitute the society it describes.

You've also got to get your point across quickly (in a fairly straightforward manner) or the reader will get bored to death or just plain confused.

jennafina wrote:What if you plan an ending, then get sidetracked so the ending you planned no longer makes sense?

Then you have to change the ending so it does make sense. Remember to ask questions about your characters. Asking questions is a great way to start conflicts, but also can be used as a way to end conflicts as well. Look for a final answer that ends the whole story.

Yeah, you have to plan an ending. I mean, not before you write the story up, but at least while you're typing a way, you have to have some idea of where you're going with it. For example, in the latest story I'm writing, I've made a rough outline of the story. It reads something like:

- 1962. The boy's dad rats on the bandit.
- Present. The brother announces his planning to kill the kid.

Having a general idea of what's going to happen on what you're going to write helps a lot, but doesn't tie you down. You can modify it, but you stick with the general idea. It also keeps you from going all over the place, and makes you focus on what you want to do. So, when you have a general idea of how you wanna end the story, it's usually a bumpless ride. Just write something like:

-Wife comes to visit. They talk.

And that's all you need to know.

My current story is one in which I'll kill one of two characters. I can't decide which would be more poetic; killing this guy or killing this guy. The two characters are both my dear brain-children, so I can't really just flip a coin and have at it. -_-;

I can not plan ahead, no matter how hard I try.

On a story I just wrote, I made myself write without erasing anything. In the beginning, the two girls didn't know each other, but by the end, I decided that they were sisters. Then I went back and re-wrote it having them be sisters. Then I re-wrote it having them be sisters, then turn out to only be friends. Then I re-wrote it having them only be friends.

I just have to get the idea down and let it go wherever it wants to go. Then I re-write, over and over again, until I decide I like what's happening.

I once tried to plan out a story, and I couldn't get anything written. I forgot all about my plans, and now I can actually write it.

But that's just me.

The ending should be based upon the previous actions of every character and every situation thus far in the story, or it will mean little to nothing. As such, I find it incredibly difficult to plan exactly the ending I'm going to use before I get there.

My current story is one in which I'll kill one of two characters. I can't decide which would be more poetic; killing this guy or killing this guy. The two characters are both my dear brain-children, so I can't really just flip a coin and have at it. -_-;

I had a same situation once, I ended up not killing either of my two characters. I've no guts at all, I'm afraid.

On a story I just wrote, I made myself write without erasing anything. In the beginning, the two girls didn't know each other, but by the end, I decided that they were sisters. Then I went back and re-wrote it having them be sisters. Then I re-wrote it having them be sisters, then turn out to only be friends. Then I re-wrote it having them only be friends.

That's my method too. I find it is a lot better that way because you actually get things finished. Usually though I know pretty well where I'm going because I have an elaborate and 'idiot-proof' outline I designed specifically for myself and it works so far, I must say =)

I like to read powerful and meaningful endings myself. I've read a lot of books where the ending was pretty much the best part of the books so I try to follow that, cause the ending is what makes a book memorable in my opinion.

*bursts into tears*
I think I'm going to have to kill a character in one of my books...not now, but eventually...it depresses me so much, because I really like him.

If there are two things the reader remembers with certain exactness there are the first and the last chapter. Haha, I began writing my story before I had an ending, in time it just came to me like in the page number 40. Pretty early. If you don't go to the ending, then it will eventually come to you.