So you've planned out your plot, the characters, and the events. You know, for the most part, how your story will go and now you've gotten to the point in your planning that you need to decide what your stories ending will look like. Enter me. Today I will be talking about the very general different types of endings that you can choose and then I will top it off by giving you some of my best tips on ending all stories.
For many writers, an ending is a point to work towards and you have to make sure it counts. Hopefully this chapter will help you with that.
Part One: Types of Endings
1. Happy Endings
In a happy ending, everything goes well for the protagonist. Despite the rough spots, they get through everything and solve the conflict. Usually they tie up all the loose ends in the story and have a good life path set out for them. Everything is just dandy.
Contrary to popular belief, most stories do not end this way. The reason is, perfectly happy endings just aren't realistic in life. Readers turn to stories to feel an emotional connection, one that happy endings tend to take away from readers. For this reason, I would suggest you take caution when writing a perfect ending. In fact, the only time I would even consider it acceptable would be in teen-fiction or romance, and even those are a bit iffy.
The reason I said those two genres, however, is because those tend to be the ones that people go to when they are in search of reassurance. Something to show them that life can get better. It is usually a put-down to those people when the story ends poorly. That being said, even happy endings need to follow a few simple rules.
The first being that the ending shouldn't be unimaginable. The reader should have been at least able to suspect that the ending could have happened the way it did. If they couldn't have, your ending would be unrealistic. My second point is that the conflict would need to have been resolved in a way that would not result in the protagonist losing anything dear to them. That would turn the ending into a bitter-sweet ending, which I will talk about later. The third point is that your protagonist, or another important character, should have gone through a change that allowed them to have that happy ending. The fourth thing for you to think about is your theme; was the happy ending effective or necessary to convey your theme? My last pointer is that you need to make sure your readers care about the characters and what happens. The readers should believe that your protagonist deserves to have that happy ending.
2. Tragic Endings
In a tragic ending, usually there is a lot of death, the problem is not resolved, or the character changes for the worse. Like happy endings, tragic endings should be done with caution. I don't say that because your readers might hate you for them. I say that because a lot of the time people just do them because they want to create a lasting impact for no reason at all. I'm telling you now that that won't win you any friends. You should always have a reason for writing a sad ending. I'll give you the three main reasons where it would be acceptable to do this.
a) The ending was unavoidable. In order to solve the conflict your character had to become a terrible person or someone had to die, etc. Or sometimes this means that your character didn't have what it took to solve the conflict. There was no way around it.
b) A tragic ending was the only way to end the story realistically. For example, your character had gone through so much it would only be realistic for them to suffer mentally after the conflict had been solved. Another example would be if it were not realistic for no one important to die at all in your story, with so much violence going on.
c) You had to have a tragic ending to convey the theme. You wanted to show that by doing or not doing certain things, it wouldn't end well for you or anyone else.
Probably the most risky type of tragic ending would be the scenario where the conflict doesn't get resolved. When you do this it makes it seem like you wasted the readers time -- like it was all for nothing. In this case you have to make it very, very clear that the ending was there for thematic purposes. Otherwise, I'd hate you too.
Something else to remember is that if you expect your readers to care about your tragic ending, they have to care about the characters in the first place, otherwise it will all be for naught. Connect your characters to the audience so it will impact them even more. If you are going to do a tragic ending, write them a story that will live with them forever.
3. Bitter-Sweet Endings
This is probably the most common ending seen, but also the safest choice. In a bitter-sweet ending, it balances out both happy and tragic elements, usually leaning a bit further to one side than the other. Why does it work so well? Because your story ending will remain realistic but still leave your readers satisfied, all the while invoking the emotions that your readers want to feel.
In a bitter-sweet ending, the conflict was resolved but it ended in some sort of loss for the protagonist. Either that or the character went through a major character change that made them realize that they were trying to solve the wrong problem the entire time. For instance, a girl who was in a bad relationship but kept trying to change her boyfriend only to realize that he wasn't healthy for her and leaving him. It's bitter-sweet because they couldn't have the relationship they desired, but they ended up better off.
In a story that has this type of ending, there really is no limit to what you can do. The most important thing to remember is that your readers shouldn't feel cheated, but the ending should still seem realistic. Perfect shouldn't be a word in your vocabulary.
4. Open Endings
In open endings, the reader doesn't know how everything will end. Many people believe that open endings are where the conflict is left unresolved for readers to guess at what will happen. I disagree that this should ever be done in writing. That doesn't mean you can't have an open ending, though.
Don't ever think for a moment that if you write an open ending, you can leave the conflict unresolved. That's too easy and it makes your story pointless. In open endings, you tie up the major ends and leave the rest loose, up to interpretation. The reason some open endings are accepted with open arms is because people like to think. We like to analyse, interpret, imagine how things should be. That satisfies the people who like sad endings and the other half -- the ones that prefer endings full of hope.
So long as the main conflict is resolved, you can do whatever you want. Usually there is at least a suggestion of what is going to happen but it is never set in stone. I'm going to give you some examples of open endings so if you don't want spoilers from a couple of them, just don't read those examples.
Example #1: In "The Spectacular Now", Sutter and Aimee are a couple. Sutter is an alcoholic and Aimee is something of a good girl. They were planning on going to college together in Philadelphia, but Sutter deletes his college essay, thinking he needs to let Aimee go because he isn't good for her. Aimee waits for him at the bus stop but eventually leaves when he doesn't show up. The movie ends with Sutter writing a new essay and driving to Philadelphia and meeting Aimee on the steps of her college. No words are spoken, but a look passes between them and Aimee smiles. This happened a year later, I believe.
That's a fantastic example of an open ending. The main conflict was Sutter going through his character change and he did that. The movie never revealed what happened with Sutter and Aimee after this happened, if they recovered their relationship or not, but that's what is so great about it.
Example #2: In "I am Legend" the character that Will Smith plays truly believes that he is alone in the world. He is proven wrong when he finds a woman and her son in his kitchen at the end of the movie. A second movie was never made so this is an open ending.
It is never explained where the woman and the boy came from, what their story is. It also doesn't say how the story will continue, instead leaving it up to the viewers interpretation of the film.
Part Two: Tips
These tips apply to all the types of endings I have listed and should be pretty brief.
Tip #1:
Not only should the conflict be resolved (with the exception of the occasional tragic ending), but it should be resolved because of the protagonist's actions. They can have help along the way but they should be the main reason for the resolution. The protagonist isn't there because they need someone to observe the story; the story is being told through their eyes because they are important.
Tip #2:
In every story your character should go through a character change, whether it be good or bad. Depending on what it is will define your story ending. All I can tell you for sure is that your character needs to be different from how they were when the story began.
Tip #3:
There should be a theme at the end of your story. Whether it is stated or implied is up to you, but it should be there for the readers to find if they analyse the story. The theme will give your ending a purpose.
Tip #4:
The best story endings make your readers feel some sort of emotion. Whether that is satisfaction, grief, or hopefulness, it doesn't matter. They should empathize with the character and feel changed for reading your book. The emotions you can choose from are endless, but your readers shouldn't feel nothing.
That's all for this chapter. I hope this helped sort out your ideas for possible endings or maybe even made you think of tweaks for the ones you have already thought up. Thanks again for reading.