Writing Your First Novel – The Ending

As I arrive at mistake number six -the final mistake to beware of when writing your first novel (and subsequent novels too, of course) – I am conscious that this may all sound rather like a set of  rules or a writing formula. Of course I would never recommend either. There is so much more to writing a novel than avoiding mistakes. If it were only about mistakes – if it could all be done by a set of rules – then our persepctive would be entirely critical and negative  instead of creative and joyous. However, the pitfalls I’ve highlighted are well acknowledged and will be worth bearing in mind when you are considering your own work. I will certainly be keeping them in the forefront of my thinking as I write my new novel but I will not let them weigh me down.

So – the final mistake concerns the ending. Joseph Finder says, ‘ A great ending is second only to a great beginning in importance.‘  Not giving your book the ending it deserves can be a big mistake; although if your novel finds favour with an agent or an editor in a publishing house they may well give you the opportunity to improve it.
This happened with my first novel, The Sweet Track. When they first read it, the editors at Flambard Press drew my attention to its lack of resolution. They felt that as the novel drew to a close the conflicts that beset my characters were not sufficiently resolved; or where they were, more attention needed to be drawn to them. This was a case when tell don’t show was needed and a time for more explicit writing. 

A reader knows the end of a novel is coming simply because of the number of pages she has left to read and she needs to feel the sense of resolution building in the final chapters: the changes that have taken place, the way in which things are forever different, a glimpse of the future.

Don’t however draw it out unecessarily. An ending is rarely about tying up all the loose ends or explaining everything – although it is important for readers to feel they know in some degree what happens to the characters; once again it’s about finding a balance.

Good endings often have symmetry to the beginning. The novel ends in the place it began. I am reminded here of a novelist whose work I admire – Patrick Gale. His novel ‘Rough Music’, begins and ends on the same beach.

Writing Tip – when I was re-working the ending of The Sweet Track I took a lot of books from my shelves (Rough Music was one of them) – books that I loved or admired – and looked closely at the endings, and in some cases the beginnings too. This way I was able to get a  feel for what worked best. One of the changes I made in the final pages was that instead of Lilli and Becca going out to walk across the Levels in the late afternoon, they went out at dawn. I’d discovered that dawn often featured in endings and I could see why – after all, dawn is a new beginning.

There is so much to learn by reading successful writers – look at their final chapters as I did and see what you think works and would work for your novel and Good Luck with the writing!