Okay, so I'm 86,000 some odd words into my novel and have come to the end and it is so anticlimatic it even puts me to sleep. It has been a search and pursuit by a 65 year old man for a murderer he thought he saw when he was 13. He's not sure if he saw it or not because he seems to have repressed the real memory of it, but the scene has been haunting him in his dreams ever since it happened. Or when he thinks it might have happened. So after this long search with dead ends and problems and sub-plots, and someone trying to kill him for some reason, he finally tracks down this weak, sick, dying, gentle old man hiding out in an old mining town up north. That's it.
Your post made me giggle yeah it ain't a good sign if it's putting even the author to sleep. Are you sure you've told the right story? Like, maybe this isn't a heart-racing page-turning thriller you were envisioning but rather something more melancholy? It sounds like a mismatch between perhaps your vision of it and what the story actually is. What are the themes? What are you trying to say? Is this a regular commercial thriller/crime novel, or something with a bit more depth?
Well, my protagonist is having memory lapses and thinks he may be getting Alzheimer's so wants to determine the truth about his recollection/or dream before he goes completely bananas. I don't know how commercial it is, but yes, I suppose you could call it a thriller/whydunit. It's not a whodunit becasue we know whodunit right off the bat. But at the same time it is kind of a quest to find himself as well as the murderer. With a hint of magic realism with the talking cougar, but that's an internal story, one of the sub-plots. Is the cougar even real or is that his own subconscious speaking to him?
Are there any stories you've come across that you find somewhat similar to your own? That's where I'd start, seeing how others have done it. It sounds intriguing! You could play up the sanity issues in the end, like a big reveal alongside finding the murderer. Something that leaves him questioning who he even is. Like, for instance, having been involved with the murder or the murder as he remembers it is not real, just his mind morphing a memory. I suppose it doesn't have to be something he's unaware of, but failed to tell the reader. The "real reason" he's motivated to do this quest.
Sarcastically speaking, on that last page instead of writing the end, write BANG. It’s hard to give much in the way of advise without having read the story. Something you might consider would be to re examine the motivation and stakes involved in the story. Why does he need to find this alleged killer? Is it for his own piece of mind, or is he trying to right a wrong? When he was 13 was he too afraid to point out the killer leaving the case unsolved? He’s going to need a solid motivation, something better than it has bothered him ever since. Then there has to be something at risk. What happens if he finds the killer and exposes him, what happens if he doesn’t? If there’s nothing at risk there won’t be much in the way of drama to the story and that would make it hard to have a bang of an ending. Your ending doesn’t have to be a huge todo, like blowing up the Nakitomi building at the end of Die Hard, but whether he succeeds or not it does have to be satisfying to the reader.
The thing is, if your protagonist is old himself, the murderer will also be old—a fair bit older. So this story is not likely to end in a crash-bang wrestling-for-the-gun denoument. I think @Mckk has the right idea here. This will be a cathartic moment for your character, and maybe also for the 'gentle old man' who was once a murderer. But both of them have put lots of miles behind them by the time they get to the ending. Maybe your protagonist feels he's wasted his whole life, chasing something that, in the end, doesn't matter as much as he thought it did. I think this is definitely DEFINITELY a very interesting scenario. And a lot will depend on what your protagonist digs up during his search. But this doesn't have to be a thriller or a whodunnit. It can be something a lot more thoughtful. I was reminded of Donna Tartt's novel, The Little Friend. As with yours, it's about an amateur pursuing a killer. It ends in a very unexpected way. It's not a thriller or a whodunnit. There is something bigger at work here. I'd say maybe develop the journey, and you'll have your story. By the time your protagonist comes face to face with the man who has obsessed him so long, what has he learned? What does the encounter to do them both? Maybe the murderer has actually been hoping to be found, so he can die with a clearer conscience? All sorts of things can happen. What if the murderer's motive for the crime is something entirely different from what the protagonist has assumed? (Which could provide a twist at the end.)
I haven't read the book, but the movie Revenge has a similar anticlimactic ending. Spoiler After Kevin Costner falls in love with the wife of the dubious Mexican something-magnate, the jefe has her sold into a brothel and addicted to heroin. Costner ambushes and attempts to kill his old friend for destroying the girl, but the boss demands that Costner ask forgiveness for stealing his wife first. He does, and both of them leave alive. Costner finds the girl, but she dies in his arms, nothing resolved. It's a powerful movie, based on a book by Jim Harrison, who also wrote Legends of the Fall (which also ends inconclusively in a way).
"What if the murderer's motive for the crime is something entirely different from what the protagonist has assumed? (Which could provide a twist at the end.)" The dead guy got the protagonist's pregnant girlfriend drunk and raped her while the protagonist was away for a month fishing on his commercial fishing vessel. Oh! Did I mention that one of the sub-plots involves a talking cougar? The mountain lion kind. The cougar appears on and off throughout the story, saving my main character from death on a couple of occasions but he is never seen by anyone else. Is he real or is he my main character's subconscious speaking to him?
If you feel you have more room for content in your book, you can add a part of the story where they both meet, and once pinned down, the "murderer" shares his point of view and the motives behind his murder, but mid-story, he lunges for his gun, and attempts to take a shot at the protagonist. I feel like you should make this "murderer" someone that is heartless as a whole, despite his age and appearance. I can imagine this man having such a good facade that he twists the readers minds into thinking he's the saddest but the most gentle man in the story, until that part. If you have read "Manhattan Hunt Club", the character "Eve Harris" has such a good facade... only to betray the protagonist in the end. Thanks for reading my input, no matter if you use this idea or not.
If you want to go in the opposite direction you could lead us down the path of an anti-climactic ending, the two have a seemingly peaceful mitigation but on the way out the MC spots something..... This thing he finds could cause the realisation that the gentle old man was lying and he DID mean to murder that girl all along. Or maybe he's murdered MANY girls? Our hero returns and shoots him.
I'd love to know details, it already sounds super interesting (crime stories fan here!). It also reminds me of Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie where the main character also can't remember exactly the murder she saw as a young girl. Check it out! I think that maybe a nice direction would be to work on the murderer character: why did he killed? Is he a cold murderer, is he a psychopath enjoying violence or the opposite he had his own reasons to kill and he is not a bad guy at all? I think the ending talk between main character and this man might take an interesting turn, depending on who the killer is: maybe he can try to manipulate the main character into thinking he is innocent? Or maybe he is innocent? Or maybe being old and ready to die he confesses he doesn't regret it and would kill again? As someone mentioned due to their older age I don't think there can be some super fight, but sometimes they can fight simply by talking or being more clever.
