Michael Pudney’s recent blog discussed how an epilogue can help round off a book. This prompted thoughts about how the ending can make or mar a work.
While not a prolific reader, a steady stream of books does pass through my hands. Being a member of a book club, I read one book a month in a wide variety of genres. Some gel, some don’t, but it’s good to tackle works you might otherwise never have read.
In the last year, about five or six good and even gripping books have been spoilt by poor endings. In one, an entire family mired in serious debt is miraculously saved by an unlikely and improbable benefactor. In another, the main and very upright character, wrongly accused of murder, goes underground to escape detection. During his ‘disappearance’, he manages to keep pretty much on the straight and narrow. Then he murders one of his below-the-radar acquaintances who is trying to blackmail him. By now, our hero is in a relationship with a policewoman who is part of the investigation into the original killing and who has put her career on the line by challenging senior officers about cover-ups. She works out that her amour has killed the blackmailer, but decides to keep quiet and set up a new life with him.
All these instances of poor endings come across as the author needing to finish the book and writing the first thing that comes into their head.
When I wrote my debut novel, I penned half the book, then spent weeks conjuring up the second half. When I finally sat at my screen, I immediately wrote the final chapter and worked back from there.
I invite you to write a piece where you too decide on the ending and build in reverse.
(Image credit PRIO4D via Pixabay)
