What makes a good ending? The question plagues us, sometimes. Why does this ending work and that one doesn’t? What’s too much, what’s too little? Why did Tolkien spend six of Book Six’s final chapters on the conclusion? The ending of the story, we realize on an instinctual level at least, defines how it will be remembered. It’s the last beat that the reader hears, and it’s the first thing he thinks of when assessing the book, and it places everything that came before it in context.

Our ideal might be a resolution. Perhaps a good ending if one that ties up all the threads, finishes the story off, and walks away. Counterexamples exist, though, at least to this uncomplicated form (because nothing is ever really simple). We can dismiss the way prequels and not-the-last-book-in-the-series include good endings without full resolution on the premise that their sequels will give them that right ending.¹ One famous story cannot be so dismissed: The Lady, or the Tiger? The story ends with an explicitly open question, and yet it well deserved our admiration.

It might, then, be happiness or catharsis or some other emotional element, and there’s a little bit right here. While I have not proved it enough to be certain, I’d expect that a story ending with justice- anticipated-but certain or accomplished, either one- such a story would be more satisfying than its opposite. As a rule, though, we can’t just turn to one emotion for our ending. The Lord of the Rings ends bittersweet; The Hobbit ends happy; chapter 21 of The Silmarillion ends sad. All three endings are effective, and yet all three are different. Catharsis has something to be said for it, but it is not the be-all and end-all of story endings either; emotional release matters, but sometimes the goal is to hold the tension, not lose it, to disquiet the reader, not exhaust him.

The best way I’ve found to formulate the real answer is this: Conclude the Questions.

Very often, concluding a question means answering it. The question of the Ring’s fate is answered by its destruction; the question of the Green Witch (The Silver Chair) is answered by her death. This is the simple way, though not always the best. Find the questions that matter, answer them, and it’s all done. The other path is a bit more obscure. Sometimes, concluding a question means asking it in a more mature way. Many books resort to this with their central philosophical debate; rather than propounding a certainty, they offer a deeper consideration without certainty, a conclusion of the moment but not of the idea. The question ‘Is it right to murder a murderer?’ has been examined from a collage of angles, the emotions have been laid bare, and the facts have been presented. The questions is left to the reader, though, to answer if he can. Such an ending is Stockton’s in The Lady, or the Tiger?, leaving open its question to the reader as to his opinion of human nature. So also, in a way, is Frodo’s ending in The Lord of the Rings: complete in certain respects, but awaiting finality in others.

The question rises also of which questions need answering and which don’t. Here we can break down relevant questions into three categories: plot, character, and theme. Generally, the central plot questions will need to be answered; you’ve made an implicit commitment to answer them. Sometimes the answer is inconclusive or a promise of more, as with a story expecting a sequel. The Fellowship of the Ring gives an answer about the Ring quest, but that answer is that it continues, not how it ends. These stories will still generally have their own central questions to actually answer, however; Book Two of The Lord of the Rings does answer the question of the Fellowship’s unity, just as Book One answered the question of the hobbits’ journey to Rivendell. Conventionally, the plot of the story is what gives it narrative unity and cohesion; it’s the framework, even when it isn’t the main attraction.

Character questions are more ephemeral; they indeed often provide the rationale for a lack of definite conclusion to the plot. In The Lady, or the Tiger? Stockton’s character question is left open deliberately, and by standing open it allows the plot question to remain open, though that phraseology is deceiving. The plot question is not merely unanswered; it is re-framed in context of the character decision, made a part of it. While character questions are more easy to leave unanswered, we must be careful with this. Consider whether leaving the question open is really more satisfying than closing it; consider whether the restatement of the question, after the maturing of the character through the story, has greater weight than the potential definite conclusion. Sometimes, the problem is that no answer can live up to the question; in such cases, the question, not the answer, must be made the point by the story.

Theme questions have the greatest potential for going unanswered. Questions of theology, emotion, psychology, and worldview are often incredibly hard, incredibly thorny, dependent on circumstance or minutia of belief. In some cases, the author himself is uncertain of the answer, must simply let the reader ask the question alongside him, having worked through it in the story as he has. In other cases, leaving the question open, as Stockton does for the reader’s assessment of human nature (implicit in the unanswered character question), is the more effective path. Resist the siren call of writing a philosophical or religious tract. On the other hand, be careful not to leave vague what better resonates when decisively finished.

As you’ve no doubt realized and may have anticipated, no precise formula for deciding which questions need answers actually exists. The problem is solved more by intuition, by experience, and by observation than anything else. A powerful tool here it asking other people how the story resonated, whether it felt wrong. A good ending may not be calculable, but it is perceptible, so we need to know what to look for.

We look for two things: first, that we make an impression; second, that we make the impression we desired. In the first, a good story ending hits hard, proportional to the weight of the story overall. A tragic story should hurt, a happy story should fill with joy; a contemplative story should produce thoughtfulness. All stories are more complicated than one word, of course, and therefore we should look for them to produce complex results. What matters in the first step is that the results are strong (and not ‘repulsion’ or ‘boredom’). The death of a book is to feel empty, like a let-down. If the ending makes readers feel like a slowly deflated balloon, the ending is bad.²

In the second part, though, we look not just for an impression but that it be the right one. Ask yourself what you want the sum of your book to be. Do you want your reader to come away happy, sad, contemplative, conflicted, considering? Which parts do you want which emotion or attitude to go with? Then work back from that to an ending which produces that result. Remember, too, that an ending requires a beginning and middle to work; write the foundation of the ending into the rest of the story. Mismatch between an ending and what all came before it, that mismatch as well is fatal.

Sometimes the right answer is an open ending. An open ending isn’t just a gap, however. An open ending, properly executed, reiterates the question, but it now uses the weight of the preceding story to reiterate the question with increased depth, increased perspective, increased nuance, increased passion. The question is not so much the same question as a child of the old question, and it should produce an impression as such. The question should be matured, ripened by the story’s passage, and the reader should walk away satiated not by the answer but by the pursuit of the question for himself.

Endings are difficult, so let’s set a goal: make them remember. A good ending is one which ties the story as a whole together and preserves it in the reader’s mind. A good ending takes the foundation of the story and sums it together. As the lofty spires of a cathedral to its floors and walls and structure, so is the ending to the beginning and middle of a story.

God bless.

Footnotes

1 – Of course, you need a screw-on pommel for that.

2 – I guess somebody might aim for that result. It would be an unconventional approach for sure.