Bet that bear packs a punch.

There are few things more disappointing than an unsatisfactory ending. We get these all the time in real life, so in fiction, we like all the loose ends tied up and for everybody to get their just desserts.

Here are three must-haves for your awesome novel ending.

 

Go big or go home

The final scene should be BIG. You can achieve this in a number of ways.

 

Involving more people than you’ve had in any previous scene:

• Maybe all the characters with intertwining stories finally come together in one big hullaballoo

• Or maybe it’s a crowd of extras to intensify the action and chaos (this could be a slavering audience, a group of protesters, a party)

 

Going to a new dramatic location

• Somewhere high up, perhaps, with big views and lashing weather

• Somewhere with lots of people (see above), such as a gladiatorial arena

Ideally you’ll involve all of the factors that give a sense of scale, by crashing all the major characters together, along with a big crowd of onlookers, in a gladiatorial arena at the peak of a mountain in the middle of a storm.

Obviously that’s only going to work in certain types of stories, but a lot of these elements can be used in all genres. Having an onlooking crowd as the boy finally admits his love to the girl (or the other way round) in a romcom is pretty common, and having a faceoff between the detective and serial killer on the top of a tall building is also hallowed ground.

 

Give your main character an impossible choice

You can read about this in more depth here (http://thenovelfactory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/secret-to-thrilling-climax-to-your.html) but in essence, this is about giving your protagonist a character defining choice.

Ideally this choice will be between attaining the goal she’s been chasing the whole story – but at a terrible price – and doing the right moral thing, but losing all she’s been personally longing for.

You can make your protagonist make the ‘right’ choice or the ‘wrong’ choice – it really depends on what sort of feeling you want to leave your readers with, the important thing is that the outcome reflects justice.

So if they sacrifice their wants for the greater good, something happens to give them an even better reward.

But if they choose to be selfish, their prize should turn out to be poison.

 

Make the triumph follow a tragedy

This isn’t about what you do in the final scene, but what you do just before it. In the scenes preceding the climax, your lead character should have reached rock bottom, and had a moment so low they could not possibly get any lower. They felt that life was not worth living. There seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel.

By having this low, it makes the climax, and probably triumph (assuming you’re writing that sort of thing) feel all the more exuberant.

This short writing exercise is based on one suggested by Margaret Geraghty in her excellent book – The five-minute Writer, which we highly recommend.

Sometimes the hardest thing about being a writer is just knuckling down and writing. And many writers live in fear of the dreaded blank page.

Writing exercises can help get the juices flowing and will also help hone your writing skills, preparing them for when you want to apply them to short stories, novels, or whatever else it is you write.

Writing about rituals

Rituals are not just all about religion and festivals, we all have all kinds of rituals in everyday life, many of which we’re probably completely unaware of – until they become interrupted and we find ourselves feeling unsettled or irritable.

When we read stories, the worlds and characters described on the page are not built entirely by the words that are supplied by the author, we use our life experience so far to fill out the details. If this didn’t happen, then authors would need to write reams of words in order to build an entire character or setting. As it is, they can use a few broad brushstrokes and know that the reader will apply stereotypes and personal life experience to fill in the rest.

We can use rituals to the same effect, by describing a common ritual that somebody might be familiar with, such as morning ablutions or making a first cup of coffee. It might be gathering all the things required for a yoga class or a dog walk, or preparing for a short or long trip.

The way in which the character carries out a common ritual will provide the reader with impressions of their character, as well as tone and atmosphere of the scene.

For example:

Janice bounds out of bed and splashes refreshing ice cold water on her face. She hums as she brushes her teeth and sweeps a bit of light make-up on, before heading downstairs for a crunchy breakfast of muesli and bananas with skimmed milk.

Nicole drags herself out of bed and swears at the perpetually flickering bare bathroom light bulb that she still hasn’t got round to fixing. She grimaces at herself in the mirror, squeezing spots of blood out of her gums. There’s no time for breakfast, as usual, so she slams the door behind her, stomach grumbling as she jogs down the road, not noticing the stain on the leg of her jeans.

A short writing exercise about rituals:

Think about the rituals you do in your life – this can be anything you do regularly, you don’t have to feel spiritual about it, or particularly attached, it’s just something routine. It may have a calming effect, but it may not. Write for fifteen minutes about your ritual. 

Try to write with specific detail, but there’s no need to over describe. For example, rather than saying ‘the dog lead’ say ‘the steel choker chain’ but don’t write 500 words when 300 will do.

All good novels contain a few important building blocks, so it’s a good idea to make sure your novel has all of them.

The major story elements that you really need to get a grip on from before you write the first sentence are:

•       Character
•       Situation
•       Objective
•   Opponent
•     Disaster

Now let’s look at each of these in a little more detail.

Character

Most novels start with an idea of a main character, or protagonist. You can have more than one major character, but you should try to be clear who your main protagonist is. They must be someone who can take action and who we follow the progress of in a linear fashion, even if they aren’t in every scene. They should develop in some way, emotionally, spiritually or morally.

Situation

Your story can’t take place in a void – or if it does, then I guess your situation is ‘being in a void’. The situation includes the location, time period and other aspects like technological level, culture, important historical factors, etc.

Objective

Your main characters has to have a goal. A lot of new writers miss this point, and don’t know why their writing fails to be compelling. Your protagonist will have small scene goals to keep the story trotting along, but they should also have an over-arching story-goal, something major. They don’t necessarily have to achieve this goal at the end, but they have to really want it – as if their life depended on it – which it often will.

Opponent

Hero walks up to stone, pulls out sword, becomes King. The end. Doesn’t make for much of a yarn, does it? That’s why you need opponents, to cause conflict, to give your hero something to strive against and to give your reader the reason to keep reading. Opponents can be baddies, armies, movie executives, nasty bosses, aliens, the police, forces of nature, or even parents. Anything that can get in the protagonist’s way.

Disaster

Throughout your story the stakes and tension should be increasingly rising, with each situation more terrible then the last, and you want to end with a huge bang, not with a whimper. So your story must have a disaster to end with. It may have explosions, shooting, crowds, shouting, car speeding to get to the airport before it’s too late… it really depends on the kind of story you’re writing. But it had better be BIG and EXCITING.

Summary

Does your story have all of the major story elements? If not, it might be worth having a think about those that are missing and seeing how they will enhance and improve your novel.

If you enjoyed this article, you might want to check out our novel writing software. Designed by writers for writers. 

The Novel Formula - A Novel Writing Method: Step Eight

Head Scenes and Tail Scenes

Now we're really going to get into the nitty-gritty technics of writing a plot that is compelling, while feeling natural and balanced to the reader.

And we're going to do it with the cunning use of Head and Tail scenes. This method is based on Dwight Swain's 'scenes' and 'sequels'.

Roughly speaking, Head scenes are where your character is being active, doing stuff, hopefully getting into trouble, getting into people's faces, that sort of thing. But a character can't do that relentlessly throughout the whole book or both they and the reader will be exhausted, not to mention they're unlikely to develop much as characters.

So, inbetween Head scenes you have Tail scenes, which are where your character pauses to take stock, reflect, regroup and plan their next move.

Now, it doesn't have to be 50/50. The balance decides what sort of story you have. If it's 80% Head scenes, you've got a fast-paced, action type story. If it's 80% Tail scenes, it's a more reflective, thoughtful story.

As a general rule, Head scenes should be immediate, happening right here and now, with the action described in detail. Whereas, in tail scenes it's possible to compress time more, even skipping over weeks, months or even years in a few sentences or pages.

Head Scenes

Head scenes can be broken down into three parts:

• Goal
• Conflict
• Disaster

At the beginning of a Head scene, your character should have some kind of goal, something they want to achieve. Otherwise it's possible for them to spend the whole scene mooching about, and very few people want to read about that.

So your character should go for their goal and get it, right? Wrong. Boring. You're character should go for their goal and -bam!  Conflict. Something stops them achieving their goal. Now your reader is interested. They want to know if the character is going to overcome this obstacle to achieve their goal. If you're good, you'll come up with a series of mounting obstacles. Then...

Disaster! Not only does your character not achieve their goal, but they're in a much worse situation than before. After all that excitement, they're spent. In fact, the disaster was so great, they may even be locked up. It's time for a Tail scene.

Tail Scenes

Tail scenes can also be broken down into three parts:

• Reaction
• Dilemma
• Decision

The first bit is their reaction to the disaster. It should be an emotional reaction rather than an active one (we'll get to the active one later). Are they furious? Despairing? They've been through a lot, they ought to be feeling something.

Once the emotions have had a chance to settle, they're going to start assessing the situation. What are they going to do next? They should have at least two options, though they may have more. At a most basic level, the two options are sit there and do nothing, or take action. Ideally, there will be no good options. Having good options makes things too easy, and readers don't want to read about someone waltzing through the story easily - they want to see them struggle and strive, so they can root for them, and genuinely worry that they'll the thwarted.

Having weighed up all the options, the character settles on one of the options. The least bad one. Though it's risky, it's worth it, in order to stick to their principles. Now they've got a goal, and the cycle is ready to turn once more.

And repeat

By applying this pattern skilfully to all of your scenes, your story will keep gaining momentum and will feel balanced and real to the reader. You'll avoid having a character that seems to just leap to conclusions out of nowhere, or meandering scenes with no direction.

Of course, you may really need a scene where your character sets out to do something, and achieves it, or something similar which doesn't fit into the structure above. That's fine - you can insert Supporting scenes in where you need them. Just try to avoid having too many of them, or you may find that your story has lost the plot.

Next step: 9a. Settings Part One: mood, atmosphere, character development and foreshadowing

Slow beginnings and how to avoid them.

First draft:

Johnny woke up early. It was a school day so he quickly dressed. He was just a normal kid; he lived in Dayton Ohio, went to high school and had a grade average that was, well, average. On the way down to breakfast he bumped into his little sister, Anne. They said good morning, like they always did, and went into the kitchen.

Ok. Here the story hasn't started yet. Nothing is happening. Obviously, this is an extreeeeeeemly boring example - you'd be surprised how often this kind of thing gets written.

Right - so, action? Right? Let's start at the action.

Second Draft:

The punch landed on Mike's face like a hammer. He swung wildly into the wall and fell to his knees. The blows kept raining down on him from all sides while he struggled to regain his feet. Covering his face with his arms he managed to pull himself up and get a foot under like a sprinter on the blocks. They were kicking him now; bashing boots into his shoulder and body. He tensed, waiting for his chance. Then, with a rush, he was off and running.

Ok, stuff is happening. But do we care? Not really. There's no context here. There's action, but no conflict. It's just a guy getting his ass kicked. I've seen stories that go on like this for three or four pages and I still had no idea what was going on (which is quite remarkable, as I wrote them myself).

If you've got a particularly strong writing voice you may be able to carry a reader's attention through one of these kinds of beginnings. For most of us though, it pays to make sure we start with some conflict.

Third Draft:

Vincent couldn't afford to be late for a third time this week; Mr Davis would kill him. He drove as fast as he dared, balancing the risk with the dread of losing his job. Going back to living in mother's basement just didn't appeal. The light was just turning red as he flew across the intersection of 12th and Main. He didn't spot the Police Prowler in the nearside lane until it pulled out into the road behind him.

Conflict requires establishing four things:

• · A character we can identify with
• · Something that character wants
• · Something that stops her getting it
• · The consequence of failure

Read your first paragraph. Have you got conflict? If not, why not?

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