How do you end your story? Heh. It might sound like a simple enough question, and all this time writing it, I thought I had the ending planned out.. but now that I am there, apparently not. The whole way through the book, it has been building towards something that these people thought would save them, but it turned out to be a much bigger problem than they had had previously. So I suppose my main question is, how to end the book, yet still leave the world in turmoil? Maybe I need to re-read some series', and try taking notes as to how they did it. Though somehow, I don't think this will help me sort out my own book. Thanks for any replies.
Sillraaia, Your question is really impossible for someone other than you to answer, other than in generalities. Every problem doesn't have to be neatly tied up, but with the main conflict or struggle, there should be some resolution. Doesn't have to be what the characters or reader expected, doesn't have to be a happy ending, but it should be satisifying to the reader. Terry
If you want to leave the book with a conflict still in existence, I suggest some kind of internal resolution for the main character(s). Readers won't be too upset if the overhanging problem still exists if the character has gone through a gigantic development, and reached some kind of turning point. Even if the event in the end doesn't solve the problem, it should still make a significant impact to the whole plot.
If there is a point you want to make then make it, otherwise either wrap up the major conflict, the character stories or both.
Thanks for the replies. I found I needed to go back to basics, and re-work some motivations because some of them had changed by the time I got to the end part. Basically, I guess, she was chasing the people who killed her family. Now that she has the guy responsible in front of her, she needs to figure out what to do with him. I reworked the whole plot in my head, and what I had been was assuming was the main plot, is actually a bigger subplot that she had been working on that got her to her main goal... which says that maybe I need to put more references of her main goal in throughout the story so that the reader will feel more satisfaction from her reaching this guy. All of that thought up just now. Thanks for helping me clear that up! =)
