If you have watched Olympic sports, as I have, you probably think that you know enough now to become a judge.
You know if a diver makes a big splash, points will be deducted. You know that if a gymnast fails to “stick the landing” and takes a big hop, yes, points will be deducted. It doesn’t matter if those athletes complete twists and turns and spins that defy the limitations of human strength and flexibility, you need a great ending to get a great score.
The same applies to writing.
The ending of my report or story matters a lot, not always a value expressed by practitioners who traditionally wrote articles that could easily be cut from the bottom.
That said, one strategy for finding a good ending was inspired by criticism from my brother Vincent. He argued that many of my endings were overblown like classical music concertos, designed to prove what a magnificent writer I had become.
He was right. Editors warn writers not to bury the lead. But you can bury an ending, too. So now I just cover the last paragraph and ask myself, “What if my story ended here?” I keep moving up from the bottom until the natural ending raises its hand for recognition.
Over time, I have collected on my workbench a variety of tools writers have used to stick the landing — without making a splash:
- Close the circle: A good ending can remind readers of the beginning by returning to an important place or reintroducing a key character.
- The tie-back: The ending echoes some odd or offbeat element — it can be a word or a phrase — introduced earlier in the story.
- The time frame: Create a tick-tock structure with time advancing relentlessly. To end the story, you decide what should happen last.
- The space frame: Rather than time, focus on place or geography. The hurricane reporter moves readers from location to location, revealing the terrible damage from the storm. To end, you select the final destination.
- The payoff: This does not require a happy ending, but a satisfying one, a reward for a journey concluded, a secret revealed, a mystery solved, a lost cat (named Voodoo) rescued from the rubble.
- The epilogue: The story ends, but life goes on. How many times have you wondered, after the house lights come back on, what happened next to the characters in a movie? Readers care about characters in stories. An epilogue helps satisfy their curiosity.
- Problem and solution: This common structure suggests its own ending. Form the problem at the top and then offer readers possible solutions and resolutions.
- The apt quote: Often overused, this technique remains a sturdy tool for ending stories. Some characters just speak in endings, capturing in their own words a neat summary or distillation of what has come before. In most cases, you can write it better than the source can say it. But not always.
- Look to the future: Most stories are about things that have already happened. But what do people say will happen next? What is the likely consequence of this decision or those events?
- Celebrate the kicker! The kicker is an old-time journalism word that describes a word, phrase, sentence or detail that provides a clever, and at times, surprising end to a story. I have not been able to find an origin for the term. The best guess came from the late, great editor Steve Lovelady, who argued that it was as old as vaudeville and burlesque when dancers kicked their way offstage at the end of a routine.
Here’s more advice that I found in the dusty pages of my book “Help! For Writers”:
- Collect good endings from books, music and movies. (From Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”: “He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.”)
- Try writing your endings first. (J.K. Rowling knew how her seven-book Harry Potter series would end before she wrote the first words of book one.)
- Think about an ending from the beginning of the process. (Reporters often encounter an anecdote or quote that they know right away they will use in a story. They can also scribble in their notebook: “possible ending.”)
- Leave readers with information they can use now. (“If you are asked to evacuate during the storm, remember to bring these things with you.”)
- Play off a classic ending: riding into the sunset, freeze-frame, that chaste kiss at the end of a Hallmark Christmas movie.
OK, so I hit my 750-word limit and now face the pressure of a good ending so my editor will not deduct points from my score.
In the spirit of the Paris Olympics, I might end with, “Bon soir!”
Or repeat these important lessons: On your vault, do your best to stick the landing. On your dive, try to enter the water vertically, so you don’t make a splash. Oh, and if you are trying to be the fastest runner in the world, be sure to lean your torso across the finish line.
