Six Types of Endings for Your Novel or Short Story

In his article “Don’t Just Conclude the Plot. . . Nail the Landing,” for the Complete Handbook of Novel Writing, Michael Orlofsky says that even though each ending should be unique there are four main types of story endings: death endings, recognition endings, framing with repetition endings, surprise or revelation endings, journey endings, and responding to theme endings.

Death Endings 

Orlofsky tells his writing students this: "Don’t kill off characters."  He says that death can be a cheap way to achieve closure and that none of his students have ever been able to convince him that a character killed off is deserving of a point of view.  However, there are always exceptions. Orlofsky gives the last line in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls as an example of a death ending that worked. As the character Robert Jordan lay badly injured and facing a troop of Franco’s cavalry, he writes the following line: “He could feel his heart beating against the pine needle floor of the forest.”

Recognition Endings

Recognition endings, according to Orlofsky, are the kind of endings employed in stories about an idea rather than a character’s struggle with an idea.  He writes: “The dialogue sounds like philosophical debate; the exposition reads like a set of instructions.”  He continually reminds his students that it is not what an ending means, but how it means.  He adds, “The best endings never conclude or close; they open.”

He gives one skillful example of a story ending in more of a how rather than a what-type scenario.  He uses the last line of James Joyce’s “Araby” to illustrate. A boy arrives a too late at bazaar where the lights are dimming and things are shutting down.  The story ends with this internal monolgue: “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.” 

Framing with Recognition Endings

Concerning this type of story ending, Orlofsky says, “In fiction, well-handled repetition creates richness and resonance—like two parallel mirrors reflecting endlessly.”  For instance, Hemingway begins and ends A Farewell to Arms with rain.  Orlofsky also sites Carson McCuller’s short story “The Ballad of the Sad Café,” which begins and end with the same sentence. He says this kind of ending “satisfies the reader’s esthetic need for pattern.”

Surprise or Revelation Endings

Orlofsky says that for today’s sophisticated reader, surprise endings have lost their appeal.  There are very few surprises left.  He writes this about surprise endings: “Surprise endings work best when they evoke irony, anguish, pity, or wonder at human capacity.”

Journey Endings

This ending shows a character beginning a journey, whether physical or spiritual.  Orlofsky says that leave-taking allows the author to use emotion to his advantage.  He also writes, “Leave-taking also satisfies one of the basic requirements of the ending:  Things can never be the same.”  One example he gives is the ending of Huckleberry Finn where Huck packs up and decides to head out for the Territory to escape his Aunt Sally’s intention to civilize him.

Response to Theme

All endings respond to theme, one way or the other.  This type of ending, according to Orlofsky, works best when “emotional and intellectual power are  balanced.”  He also says that this type of ending requires the most skill because the balance can easily be easily upset.  Too little, and the ending falls flat; too much, and it can sound contrived.  He gives as an example the ending of D.H. Lawrence’s “Odour of Chrysanthemums.”  At the end, a wife is preparing the body of her husband who has just been killed in a mining accident. 

 

Then with peace sunk heavy on her heart, she went about making tidy the kitchen.  She knew she submitted to life, which was her immediate master.  But from death, her ultimate master, she winced with fear and shame.  

Keep these types of endings in mind as you decide how your novel or short story will end.   

Handling Subplots in Your Novel Part 2

In my last blog, I discussed how subplots could add depth to stories with simple, direct plots. I also mentioned that subplot, just as central plots, must also run the gamut of conflict, complication, crisis, and resolution.

I also brought up the idea of thinking of subplots as a kind of braid where one subplot comes into view and then disappears behind another only to come back into view later. The problem with braided plots is that they can sometimes take so many twists and turns that they begin to resemble tangled string.  Make sure you tie up any loose ends in your subplots. Make sure they reach resolution.

One example of a story consisting of a few braided subplots is a novel called Undercover Cat. Disney based a movie on it called That Darn Cat.  For those who never saw the movie, it is the story of a Siamese cat who becomes mixed up with a case of kidnapping and bank robbery.  

In the first main scene, the cat is following a guy with a sack of salmon streaks he has just purchased at the butcher shop.  Soon they come to an apartment where the cat slips in and the viewer discovers that the guy and his buddy are bank robbers who have kidnapped a bank teller.   

While the cat is in the apartment, the bank teller gets the idea to scratch the word help on the back of her wristwatch and replace the cat’s collar with it.  However, she only gets the HEL on there before one of the kidnappers yells for her to hurry up with dinner. 

After the cat is let out, it heads back for home where his owner, Patty, and her boyfriend have just gotten back from a movie.  A few pets later, he goes outside where Patty’s sister is saying good night to her ride, Gregory, who is inviting her to dine on duck the following evening with him and his mother.  

The cat, overhearing this, wastes no time going to Gregory’s to find the duck hanging on the back porch where he devises a clever way to get it down.  This of course alerts the dog who alerts Gregory who chases the cat back to his house.  There Gregory confronts Patty and threatens to shoot the cat (DC) if he ever comes around his house again.  

Without boring you with too many more details, Patty and DC proceed upstairs where Patty finds the wristwatch around his neck.  When she sees the HEL on the back she is sure that someone is in trouble.  From there she goes to the FBI. 

All of this aside, my favorite subplot in this story begins back where Patty arrives home with her boyfriend, Canoe.  The old woman next door is watching through her window and is appalled that Patty would let a boy into her house while her parents are away.

The fun really starts when the FBI agent sets up a tracking station for the cat in Patty’s sister’s bedroom, which happens to be in the old lady’s view.  In one scene, she even ties a microphone to the end of some fishing line and casts it up toward the window in hopes of hearing the conversation between the couple in the bedroom.  In that scene her plan gets foiled by her husband who is irritated at her voyeuristic tendencies and at the fact that she has taken his hearing aids.

The old lady’s insatiable need to know eventually leads her on a pursuit beyond her front yard.  At this point her husband calls the police to report a man dressed as a woman prowling the neighborhood.  And you can probably guess how she feels about her husband by the time the police bring her home.  In fact she tells the policeman to wait because she is going in to murder someone.  Fortunately, her husband sees her coming and makes a break out the back door.

In this story, the subplots weave in and out in ways that help the story keep an engaging pace.  We aren’t left strictly following a cat around.  

  

But the cat is nevertheless the glue that holds the subplots to the central plot. Without the cat, Patty and the FBI agent’s silhouettes would not have been seen together in the window of Patty’s sister’s bedroom, and the lady next door wouldn’t have had anything to worry about beyond the boy walking into the front door.  Two other subplots owe their existence to the presence of the FBI agent at the home of the feline protagonist. 

As with a braid, each strand of subplot comes into view and then disappears behind another but is not forgotten.  In the end they are all neatly tied together, all converging to bring about a satisfying ending.  In the end the cat becomes a hero and all subplots reach a state of resolution.