On Endings

One month and one day ago, I wrote a blog post on beginnings. I did this because I had attended an extremely brilliant workshop on beginnings, run by the fabulous Anita Shreve, and learned so much my brain was going to explode a little. Plus, beginnings are an important part of your book. Some would even say the most important part. They hook the reader (and before that, the agent, and somewhere in between, the editor), and set the tone of the novel.

But more than once I've heard agents express their disappointment over full manuscripts they've received that just didn't live up to the shine and promise of the first few sample chapters. That's probably because most writers get it drilled into their heads how important the beginning is that they often neglect, or at least don't criticize as harshly, the middle and the end. But the truth is, although the beginning is what hooks a reader, the middle is what keeps them going, and the end is what makes them beg you to write another book.

There are several ways to end a novel:

1. The happy ending. We're all familiar with the happy ending. Everything gets wrapped up in a neat little bow, the evil-doer is vanquished, the lovers OMGTOTALLYMAKEOUT, and all is well. Most fairy tales, unless they're German and/or the Brothers Grimm, have a happy ending. The problem with the happy ending is that it's not always totally true to life. In real life, everything isn't perfect all the time. Sometimes the bad guy wins. Sometimes the lovers don't work out. The good thing about the happy ending is that it will probably make most of your readers pretty happy, as well.

2. Everybody dies. I don't necessarily mean this literally. What I mean by "everybody dies" is basically the opposite of "happily ever after." Your main character does not successfully complete their goal. The villain gets away with the diamonds. The girlfriend cheats on her boyfriend. A black hole envelops the world. And then you have to put your dog down. It's a tragedy, in other words, and when done well it can be a perfect ending (just ask Shakespeare). The problem, of course, with this type of ending is that a lot of readers don't like them, especially in contemporary YA, so you're going to piss some readers off. I also tend to think that they aren't realistic, for all the same reasons I think happy endings aren't realistic.  

3. The cliffhanger. This is an ending you'll often see in a series, particularly from established authors, or in the middle of a trilogy or longer series. (Think Catching Fire) You typically don't see cliffhangers at the end of the first book from a debut author. Why? Because even though the author might know that the book will go on to be a well-loved seven book series, and will in fact be one of the biggest literary phenomenons of our time, the publisher doesn't know that. They want to make sure that you write a book that leaves room for a sequel, but also could stand alone in the event that the book isn't successful enough to warrant follow-ups. After all, they don't want to annoy the few fans you did manage to snag. Remember to keep this in mind as you write: if you have a series planned, the first book needs to be able to stand on its own.


4. The ambiguous ending. This is the kind of ending were you leave it up to the reader to figure out what happens next. The most recent book I read with this kind of ending was The Killing Circle by Andrew Pyper. In that book, it was done well, and I loved it. In general, though, these endings are very hard to pull off. They take a sophisticated, coy writing style. They also can infuriate some readers, and you should prepare to be asked, for the rest of your life, "So did Jack really get away with the diamonds? Or did Mona push him off the cliff after all? I HAVE TO KNOW!!!!!"

5. The happy median. It should come as no surprise that this is my favorite kind of ending. In this ending, some loose endings are tied up, while some are left dangling for the reader to speculate on. The hero wins some battles, but faces tragedy as well. I like this ending because it is the most realistic. Life itself is a balance of good and evil, happy events and sad, and I think that novels should reflect life. So my current project has a happy median ending. However, this is a planned series, so if this WIP gets picked up, hopefully the next book will end in a cliffhanger...

What kind of ending do you like to read? And, if you're a writer, what kind of ending does your book have (if you want to share)? If you think there are more ending categories (I know this isn't a comprehensive list, but I think I got all the basics), please share them in the comments!

On beginnings

Edit: I realized after I wrote this that this post is not at all witty, like I normally strive to be. Sorry. I literally got three hours of sleep last night. I'll try harder tomorrow. (Which shouldn't be hard, since I'm getting workshopped tomorrow!) But there is a LOT of great info here, so don't let the lack of my normal charming sense of humor deter you. ;)

Today's morning workshop was all about beginnings.

Gone are the days of the 19th century manuscript, where authors could spend page after page after endless page setting up scenes, themes, and motifs. The sad truth is, no matter how amazing the rest of your book is, the first 250 words better be the best writing in the entire thing, otherwise agents, editors, and eventually the general reading public will never get past the first page. Anita Shreve admitted that there is way too much emphasis on the beginning, but it's true; if your novel doesn't grab the reader right away, it will be auto-rejected, tossed to the side, or put back in the stacks. Worst of all, busy agents and editors are searching for reasons to turn your novel down; knowing they can put your book aside means they can easily move on to the next manuscript.

So what makes up a good beginning? The most important thing is arresting, beautiful writing. Anita Shreve admitted that wasn't particularly helpful, because it's mostly a gut-feeling kind of thing. She looks for the kind of beginning that leaves her with a shiver in a chest. She did read two examples of her favorite beginnings, one of which I've included below:

Mum says, "Don't come creeping into our room at night."
They sleep with loaded guns beside them on the bedside rugs. She says, "Don't startle us when we're sleeping."
"Why not?"
"We might shoot you."
"Oh."
"By mistake."
"Okay." As it is, there seems a good enough chance of getting shot on purpose. "Okay, I won't."
So if I wake in the night and need Mum and Dad, I call Vanessa, because she isn't armed. "Van! Van, hey!" I hiss across the room until she wakes up. And then Van has to light a candle and escort me to the loo, where I pee sleepily into the flickering yellow light and Van keeps the candle high, looking for snakes and scorpions and baboon spiders.

From Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller. There is a mistake, though, because you can't hiss the words "Van, Van, hey!" since there aren't any S's, but it took Anita Shreve five reads to notice.

 

There are several different ways to start a novel, including dialogue (which, incidentally, Dennis Lehane hates, because he likes to immediately know what's going on, but Anita Shreve is OK with it as long as she finds out soon enough what's happening), the telling of a tale, setting description, what the character is doing (AS's favorite), or a description of the relationship between the characters.

More importantly, though, are the ways not to start a novel. They include:

• Descriptions of the sky or weather, because it happens so often it's now an auto-rejection (Hilariously, when she was saying this, she actually said "awful" instead of "often" the first time)
• Waking up/dreaming, because it's a cliche, and with dreams there's a sense that you're cheating the reader because they're investing their time in something that isn't real
• Letters (AS's editor said he always skips over dreams and letters in books)
• A woman driving in the car with the wind blowing in her hair
  
• They were 50-50 split on whether or not prologues were OK

Then we played a game called "Writer Idol." Dennis Lehane, Anita Shreve, and Tom Franklin sat at the front of the room American-Idol style. An actress read the first 250 words of anonymously submitted openings, and if any of them heard something that would make them stop reading, they would raise their hands. If two hands went up, the reading stopped. These are the things that made them raise their hands:

• A bullet in the shoulder on the first line (arresting doesn't mean startling, it means well-written); it was too jarring and the author was coming in too hard. (Lehane said he doesn't like the beginning of Lethal Weapon 2 because it opens in the middle of a car chase with no context)
  
• "My own personal opinion," because it's a sign of weak writing since it's redundant times three (obviously your opinion is your own and it's personal)
• overwriting
• confusion; when they didn't understand what was going on
• sky/weather (one piece mentioned it three times in 250 words)
• waking up
• "shards of pain broke through his thoughts" (this phrase, on its own, was enough to get a work rejected since it has cliches and signs of weak writing)
• lack of character or action
• unspecific - the character had a thought but wouldn't tell us what it was. He was being needlessly coy.
• Adverb overkill (the example was touching a pet - the author wrote "lovingly brushing his fur." Lehane said if someone brushes the fur non-lovingly, then he'll take the modifier, because it's not expected) Use adverbs the way you use salt.
• Cliches
• Unrelated, today's tally on number of comments on my age: 2.5. (One was in reference to the amount of YA I read, which I said I do because I love it, but also because I want to keep up my genre, and she said, "Plus you're in that age group anyway." *headdesk*)
  

Finally, two quotes I love (though there were several - follow me on Twitter for tweets throughout the day!)

"Read your first ten pages and find your most arresting sentence. Make that your first line." - Anita Shreve

"Any rule I give you, some writer, somewhere, has broken it beautifully." - Tom Franklin