I’ve been thinking about story endings a lot lately. A satisfying end to a novel is the best part for the reader and the hardest part for the writer.
A few years ago, I participated in an online book club run by an agent who consistently gives back to the writing community in loving and useful ways. She’s someone who knows what goes into a manuscript that finds a publisher.
The book the agent chose was full of relationship drama and well paced. The writing was beautiful, the characterization was interesting and believable. And then there was the climax. A smallish woman pushes a man — a man who was not the main antagonist (who, disappointingly, seemed to have disappeared from the story) — from a high place to his death.
The day of the book discussion, the leader came in and out of breakout groups. When the leader was in my group, the discussion centered on the structure of the novel. But when she left, something interesting happened. The discussion turned to how unsatisfying the end of the novel was. Everyone was afraid to mention this while the leader was in the room because she had worked hard (and for no pay) to pull this discussion together. But literally everyone hated the novel’s ending. No one believed it. We were all people seeking agent representation, so one might assume none of us knew how to end a novel. But we were also a group of avid readers, so I doubt that was a valid conclusion.
About a year later, the agent had another book club for writers. Again, the idea was to see how a published author structures a novel. And again the chosen work was full of relationship drama and well paced. The writing was beautiful, the characterization was interesting and mostly believable, with an important exception. And then there was the climax. A smallish, fairly unhealthy woman (she smokes, is super anxious and not eating much or well) pushes a man to his death from a great height. I didn’t believe it. I didn’t attend the discussion this time. I figured I was on a different page.
No, author, you are not allowed to get tired and throw the bad guy off a cliff so you can quit the story. Sorry.
I’ve recently read a few novels where the endings weren’t very realistic, but they were satisfying. I pondered why.
One was “The Maid” by Nita Prose. I loved the quirky protagonist and how her misunderstanding of social cues drives the action and gets her in trouble, but also gets her out of trouble in this murder mystery. I think I like this in the same way I like the movie “Forest Gump.” There are important points being made — in this case about the working poor, inequity, and social class — but the action becomes more surreal in the second half. What happens is absurd, but I was invested in a win for the protagonist by that time (which speaks to the craft of the author, her skills in characterization). So when the protagonist has wins stacked one on top of the other, I had a good chuckle. I slipped back 20 years into a “You go, girl!” moment.
“Family, Family” by Laurie Frankel is a novel that engages with adoption in a positive way rather than looking at it as a sad last choice. Many of the events happen in a way that requires very good luck and excellent coincidental timing (a few examples are a girl having a baby the summer after her senior year in high school so it doesn’t affect her life goals, and then having another one the summer after she graduates from college so, again, she moves on with her life goals).
I was satisfied with the end even though it wasn’t something that would happen for most people. But I accepted that the protagonist is both talented and lucky. While she’s not an everyday person, she represents a certain type of real person, one who, despite her good fortune, has everyday problems to solve in parenting her kids. Her fears are both realistic and relatable. Her kids are precocious, but then, some kids are.
Why, then, am I satisfied with the end of some of the above books and not others?
The short answer is authenticity. This isn’t the same as reality-based. If the genre is sci-fi, fantasy, satire, humor, etc., the novel may depart from reality quickly. But if the end is consistent with the overall work, readers will be satisfied.
A former teacher librarian, Victoria Waddle is the author of “Acts of Contrition,” and “The Mortality of Dogs and Humans.” Join her on Substack at “Be a Cactus” for conversation about libraries and the craft of writing.
