Sunday, July 4, 2010

Wrong-ended

What are some good ways to end your book? Some bad ones are here By Ed Patterson.

HOW TO END A NOVEL

How many times have you heard readers say, "It was a good book, but I didn't like the way it ended?" Ending our novels is more important than beginning them, despite the reasoning that the opening entices the reader.

Traditionally, endings are viewed as happy, sad, pensive, surprise, or abrupt. Ed says it doesn't matter "how" your novel ends, it's "where" it ends that is critical.

Epilogues are good. It's Ed's main suggestion on How to Get it Right. He describes it as "that taste of sherbet between courses, your novel and the reader's exit to the real world."

The epilogue is a way to ease the reader out of the story, and tie up stray plot lines. Mostly, an epilogue says Things Will Work Out-here's how.

1 comment:

  1. I like that analogy - an epilogue as a way to ease readers out of the story. I read the book Stone Fox to my students, and they would always be so sad at the ending. We always wrote epilogues to the book, imagining the lives of the characters 5 years later. Food for thought.

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