"Start as close to the end as possible."
--Kurt Vonnegut, Rule #5 of Creative Writing
Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Berkeley Books, 1999. p. 13.
Second only to the main conflict, the way a narrative begins and ends are the most crucial moments in the writing. Unlike other story structures (poetry, drama, and myth), narrative is an investment in both time (as reading takes longer than watching or listening) and effort (reading requires more focus and creativity than a text that is acted out or read aloud to a person). Since every narrative is an investment, readers tend to be selective, picking a narrative to read based on the title and author and only continuing to read if the first few paragraphs catch interest. Otherwise, the reader will put the story down and move on. If the beginning engages the reader and they read, they also expect a solid resolution that makes sense at the end of the story. An otherwise solid story with a "bad ending" is more rejected in literary circles that stories that start slow, have a messy conflict, or have weak character development. Here are some tips to both lead and end strong in your own narratives.
Ending a story
Why am I starting with the end of the story instead of the beginning? You should write the ending (or at least the climax) before the opening. Why? Writing the end gives you a idea of where you are going with the story. If you want to include foreshadowing, situational and dramatic irony, and plot twists in a story, you have to know what the ending will be. Not all professional authors write the end first, but almost all at least plan a strict outline where the ending is set in their minds before they write a single word.
So what makes a good ending? It has to solve the conflict, of course. Yet there are three things the solution must be: logical, emotional, and final.
LOGICAL END: The climax feel earned, meaning the story has built to the ending that is told. The author's use of foreshadowing, prophesy, irony, and plot should successfully tease where the conflict will go, and the readers will reject the story if the story does not go there. This is not to say you cannot surprise the reader with the ending. One of the biggest surprises in literature is that of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club: that Tyler Durden is actually the split personality of the narrator. While this is a surprise, the reader can go back through the novel and see the clues Palahniuk includes, such as how Durden rarely interacts with anyone else. Readers like surprises, but only if they make sense. If an solution comes out of nowhere, the audience feels cheated, as if they were playing along with the story and then the rules were changed. Classical stories did this constantly, having gods arrive at the last minute and save characters from a bad fate. This idea is the called deus ex machina, and refers to any illogical solution that appears without warning at the climax of the story. Some modern stories can successfully pair deus ex machina with irony to form an acceptable ending, like the ending of War of the Worlds: the aliens that easily slaughtered the most complex animal of Earth, man, but fell victim to its simplest and most insignificant, bacteria. However, deus ex machina should be avoided most of the time. Same with "it was all a dream" endings."
EMOTIONAL END: The climax must draw a cathartic emotion from the reader: joy, anger, sadness, horror, or disgust. Catharsis is the entire point of storytelling, and if readers don't feel at the ending, they will dislike the story. So how do you make the end emotional? First, have readers emotionally invest in the characters. Then when the climax comes, everything must be at risk: the protagonist must win big or lose everything. Make the final battle, whether its an epic war like A Game of Thrones or a battle of words like Twelve Angry Men, very high stakes. Don't give consolation prizes: even if you have a wonderful hero everyone likes, if she loses, she must lose big, either losing her status as a hero or even dying. Kill your darlings if the story calls for it: readers may be angry but will still appreciate the ending.
FINAL END: The ending of the story should not be ambiguous or up in the air. There must be a finality, even in the case of series. At the end of The Hunger Games, for example, the conflict of the first book (Katniss must survive vs. the games trying to kill her) ends in the last few pages when she almost eats the berries. While that action of defiance is the inciting incident the conflict of the second book (Katniss must survive yet again vs. Snow's pointed physical and psychological warfare) and the third book (Katniss' revolution vs. Snow's autocracy), the first book's conflict is done without any ambiguity. Katniss survives. If the book stopped right as she and Peeta took the berries, the end would have no final end and would have anger readers.
So the climax occurs. How should the story actually end? First, tie up all loose ends as quickly as possible after the climax. Take A Fault in Our Stars: the climax is Augustus' death. The immediate question is if Hazel will be okay, and the couple of chapters following the climax address literal hanging threads, like the fact that Augustus needs to be buried, and gets Hazel to a place where the reader will know she will be okay. This denouement and resolution does not have to be explicitly spelled out: the less the better, even if it is only implied. The literal end of "The Lottery" is Tessie's death, yet the story implies that her family will move on and the lottery will occur next year, based on how ceremoniously and unemotionally she is dispatched. In a film, only the last two or three minutes are spent on denouement and resolution: make yours just as brief.
As for your last words, remember to not add any new characters or information. This is the ending, so end it! Don't try to force something happy or pleasing if the story doesn't call for it, and don't muse over what the story means or the lesson it teaches: readers can discover that for themselves. Even so, your last words should have action: a character returning home, an item being laid to rest, a stranger moving on, etc. If possible, reflect the choice you made in the beginning: if you start with dialogue, end with dialogue. If you start with narration on scene, end with narration. If you begin with a character eating breakfast, end with the character eating breakfast days later. This will create parallelism that will make your story seem more interconnected. Speaking of openers...
So what makes a good ending? It has to solve the conflict, of course. Yet there are three things the solution must be: logical, emotional, and final.
LOGICAL END: The climax feel earned, meaning the story has built to the ending that is told. The author's use of foreshadowing, prophesy, irony, and plot should successfully tease where the conflict will go, and the readers will reject the story if the story does not go there. This is not to say you cannot surprise the reader with the ending. One of the biggest surprises in literature is that of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club: that Tyler Durden is actually the split personality of the narrator. While this is a surprise, the reader can go back through the novel and see the clues Palahniuk includes, such as how Durden rarely interacts with anyone else. Readers like surprises, but only if they make sense. If an solution comes out of nowhere, the audience feels cheated, as if they were playing along with the story and then the rules were changed. Classical stories did this constantly, having gods arrive at the last minute and save characters from a bad fate. This idea is the called deus ex machina, and refers to any illogical solution that appears without warning at the climax of the story. Some modern stories can successfully pair deus ex machina with irony to form an acceptable ending, like the ending of War of the Worlds: the aliens that easily slaughtered the most complex animal of Earth, man, but fell victim to its simplest and most insignificant, bacteria. However, deus ex machina should be avoided most of the time. Same with "it was all a dream" endings."
EMOTIONAL END: The climax must draw a cathartic emotion from the reader: joy, anger, sadness, horror, or disgust. Catharsis is the entire point of storytelling, and if readers don't feel at the ending, they will dislike the story. So how do you make the end emotional? First, have readers emotionally invest in the characters. Then when the climax comes, everything must be at risk: the protagonist must win big or lose everything. Make the final battle, whether its an epic war like A Game of Thrones or a battle of words like Twelve Angry Men, very high stakes. Don't give consolation prizes: even if you have a wonderful hero everyone likes, if she loses, she must lose big, either losing her status as a hero or even dying. Kill your darlings if the story calls for it: readers may be angry but will still appreciate the ending.
FINAL END: The ending of the story should not be ambiguous or up in the air. There must be a finality, even in the case of series. At the end of The Hunger Games, for example, the conflict of the first book (Katniss must survive vs. the games trying to kill her) ends in the last few pages when she almost eats the berries. While that action of defiance is the inciting incident the conflict of the second book (Katniss must survive yet again vs. Snow's pointed physical and psychological warfare) and the third book (Katniss' revolution vs. Snow's autocracy), the first book's conflict is done without any ambiguity. Katniss survives. If the book stopped right as she and Peeta took the berries, the end would have no final end and would have anger readers.
So the climax occurs. How should the story actually end? First, tie up all loose ends as quickly as possible after the climax. Take A Fault in Our Stars: the climax is Augustus' death. The immediate question is if Hazel will be okay, and the couple of chapters following the climax address literal hanging threads, like the fact that Augustus needs to be buried, and gets Hazel to a place where the reader will know she will be okay. This denouement and resolution does not have to be explicitly spelled out: the less the better, even if it is only implied. The literal end of "The Lottery" is Tessie's death, yet the story implies that her family will move on and the lottery will occur next year, based on how ceremoniously and unemotionally she is dispatched. In a film, only the last two or three minutes are spent on denouement and resolution: make yours just as brief.
As for your last words, remember to not add any new characters or information. This is the ending, so end it! Don't try to force something happy or pleasing if the story doesn't call for it, and don't muse over what the story means or the lesson it teaches: readers can discover that for themselves. Even so, your last words should have action: a character returning home, an item being laid to rest, a stranger moving on, etc. If possible, reflect the choice you made in the beginning: if you start with dialogue, end with dialogue. If you start with narration on scene, end with narration. If you begin with a character eating breakfast, end with the character eating breakfast days later. This will create parallelism that will make your story seem more interconnected. Speaking of openers...
Starting a story
In professional writing, there is the common rule of the first 150 words. Regardless of whether the narrative is a short story, novella, or full novel, the first 150 words (typically the first two paragraphs) are going to be the most a reader (or literary agent, if you want to sell your writing) will read before they decide to continue or stop. If your reader makes it past the first 150 words, they will almost certainly read until the end. There are five things you must do in the first 150 words: establish style, establish perspective, establish setting, hint at the conflict, and hook the reader.
ESTABLISH STYLE: The first words are important to show the reader the tone of how the author writes and how complex the writing will be (as gleaned through vocabulary and syntax). If the first few sentences are too complex or too basic for a reader, they will put the story down. However, the style in the first few paragraphs should fit the entire narrative or the reader will feel tricked into reading the story.
ESTABLISH PERSPECTIVE: The first few paragraphs will naturally show the reader the perspective (more about perspective can be found here). What I mean here is that the first few words must set up the voice of the narrator: Do they speak with slang? Will they be objective or unreliable? Are they involved with the story or not? This must be established right away.
ESTABLISH SETTING: While the first few words shouldn't be all devoted to describing all the setting details but should still establish the time and place of a story. This can be easily done through character dialogue, as characters using "thou" and "thine" won't be in present. Objects can also reveal this: if a character is driving a tractor, the story is a rural setting, while a flying car would be a futuristic city. Many stories outright say the name of the town they are set in.
HINT AT CONFLICT: The first 150 lines should, if not establish the conflict itself, should introduce the protagonist or antagonistic force. This way, the reader knows who they are supposed to root for and what will happen. Many beginning writers think the first words should establish all the exposition of the characters, but this gets boring quickly. Think of the best films: Star Wars starts with a battle on Leia's ship, Beetlejuice starts with an argument about selling a house, and Casablanca starts with a man shot in the street. The audience learns the reasons behind these small conflicts (which connect to the main conflict) after they end.
HOOK THE READER: The last item is the most important, as it draws a reader in and makes them want to read more. Readers like action more than anything else. Here are some dos and don'ts for hooking a reader:
Additionally, some writers wonder if they should include epigraphs in their stories. Epigraphs are quotations from another text used at the start of each chapter or section that ties into the content of the section. Notice that every page in the story section of this site starts with an epigraph from Kurt Vonnegut. Epigraphs are great in establishing a theme early on and breaking a story into sections but are not a way to start a story strong. Epigraphs are like a well-made sauce: it can make a good dish even better, but it can't save a terrible dish. Epigraphs can add a new dimension to good writing, but will make bad writing worse.
ESTABLISH STYLE: The first words are important to show the reader the tone of how the author writes and how complex the writing will be (as gleaned through vocabulary and syntax). If the first few sentences are too complex or too basic for a reader, they will put the story down. However, the style in the first few paragraphs should fit the entire narrative or the reader will feel tricked into reading the story.
ESTABLISH PERSPECTIVE: The first few paragraphs will naturally show the reader the perspective (more about perspective can be found here). What I mean here is that the first few words must set up the voice of the narrator: Do they speak with slang? Will they be objective or unreliable? Are they involved with the story or not? This must be established right away.
ESTABLISH SETTING: While the first few words shouldn't be all devoted to describing all the setting details but should still establish the time and place of a story. This can be easily done through character dialogue, as characters using "thou" and "thine" won't be in present. Objects can also reveal this: if a character is driving a tractor, the story is a rural setting, while a flying car would be a futuristic city. Many stories outright say the name of the town they are set in.
HINT AT CONFLICT: The first 150 lines should, if not establish the conflict itself, should introduce the protagonist or antagonistic force. This way, the reader knows who they are supposed to root for and what will happen. Many beginning writers think the first words should establish all the exposition of the characters, but this gets boring quickly. Think of the best films: Star Wars starts with a battle on Leia's ship, Beetlejuice starts with an argument about selling a house, and Casablanca starts with a man shot in the street. The audience learns the reasons behind these small conflicts (which connect to the main conflict) after they end.
HOOK THE READER: The last item is the most important, as it draws a reader in and makes them want to read more. Readers like action more than anything else. Here are some dos and don'ts for hooking a reader:
- DO: Start with dialogue of two characters in an argument. This establishes the protagonist and his or her voice, demonstrates what the conflict will be, and hint at setting through the way characters talk and what they are doing while talking.
- DON'T: Start a story with onomatopoeia. This is a typical device of an amateur writer, but instead of grabbing the reader, it actually repels readers instead of easing them in.
- DO: Start in the middle of a character's daily life. The best problems come out of everyday events, such as eating lunch with a friend in public, attending work or a class, or even walking between two destinations.
- DON'T: Start a story with the character's waking up for the day. There is (typically) no one else in these scene, so they drag. Getting ready for the day is boring: at least start at the breakfast table where the character can interact with the family.
- DO: Start with narration discussing a character who is going to do something out of the ordinary. If the ordinary is eating breakfast with the wife at the diner, have the character go to the diner alone. If the ordinary is high school, have the character walk through the halls of a college. If the ordinary is playing with the same band, have the guitarist get sick and put in a last-minute replacement. Comfort is the opposite of conflict, and nothing interesting happens in the ordinary world. Start with the character in an uncomfortable situation and let the conflict blossom from there.
- DON'T: List every detail about the protagonist like you are writing a Tinder profile. While the reader should be able to glean some character detail from the opener, like appearance, attitude, and and beliefs, you are telling a conflict, not writing a biography. Similarly, prologues (which give a lot of background information before a story) are difficult to pull off well in narrative, so it's best if they aren't used.
- DO: Foreshadow what will happen in the story. Horror stories do this well, giving little signs that things in the world are wrong. Many narratives start right before the climax in the middle of the action and then catch the reader up to where they are (this is called in medias res). Forrest Gump is an excellent example of this: Forrest starts on a park bench, waiting on a bus to finally reunite with Jenny after several years and then spends the bulk of the novel telling the reader about those years to catch them up to where he is.
- DON'T: Give away the ending. Forrest is waiting to go see Jenny when we first meet him, and it works because the reader wants to know if Forrest and Jenny will be together. If the first scene was set after the climax, when the reader knows that Jenny is dying, then the reader won't continue the story, as it's been spoiled. This is also the problem of having a first person narrator who dies at the end and is telling the story from the afterlife: if we know he will die, then it ruins the climax.
Additionally, some writers wonder if they should include epigraphs in their stories. Epigraphs are quotations from another text used at the start of each chapter or section that ties into the content of the section. Notice that every page in the story section of this site starts with an epigraph from Kurt Vonnegut. Epigraphs are great in establishing a theme early on and breaking a story into sections but are not a way to start a story strong. Epigraphs are like a well-made sauce: it can make a good dish even better, but it can't save a terrible dish. Epigraphs can add a new dimension to good writing, but will make bad writing worse.
Titling stories
A good title has three features. First, it catches the reader’s interest. Titles that are generic or too common will not catch a reader's eye and they will not pick up the story. Make sure to enter your title into a search engine to make sure your title isn't already the title of a famous story. Second, a good title reflects the tone and subject of the piece. A story called "The Boogeyman," for example, fits a horror genre but not romance. Finally, your title should be memorable and could be found easily in a keyword search. If no one can find your story, no one will read your story. Titles should be as simple and direct as possible to make them more memorable. They should also evoke an image: if it would be hard to draw a picture related to your story solely based on the title, the title is bad.
The best way to write your title is to wait until your story is finished and then write the title. Here are some common ways to write a title:
The best way to write your title is to wait until your story is finished and then write the title. Here are some common ways to write a title:
- Use a character name, maybe with an adjective ("EPICAC," Cool Hand Like, The Great Gatsby)
- Use an important object that symbolizes story ("A Rose for Emily," The Crucible, The Bell Jar)
- Use the location, especially with description (Our Town, No Country for Old Men)
- Start with a present tense verb (“Finding the Red Door,” Driving Miss Daisy)
- Use a memorable phrase from your finished draft ("2BR02B," Welcome to the Monkey House)
- Use a figure of speech, like a popular idiom or snowclone ("All the King's Horses," In Cold Blood)
- Use a vivid image from the story ("There Will Come Soft Rains," The Silence of the Lambs)
- Start with a reporter question ("Who Am I This Time?," How the West Was Won)
- Pick something very long ("Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay)