Some Tips for the Ending of Your Story

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Once the goal has been reached and the purpose of your story fulfilled, you need to tie off loose ends fairly quickly.

You know the story of Cinderella? Have you ever wondered what happens to her nasty step-family? Me neither! We don't care, because the story is about Cinderella – the only thing that matters is that good has triumphed over evil and she has her prince!

Allow your readers to sigh in satisfaction as your hero revels in their success at the end of your story – then leave them on that high note as they close the book.

You don’t need a chapter on what happened to the evil step family after the wedding. Imagine if you finished with that – how would you feel, going away from the story, with that your mind?

Riding into the sunset after the wedding is so much more appealing for readers!

Equally, we don’t need a chapter with the honeymoon and the happy couple going back to the castle… unless you are planning on a sequel about Cinderella’s life as royalty!

Here’s an example of a good ending for a children’s novel - A Pennyworth of Peppermints, published by Dernier, by Mary Weeks Millard.

This book is set  in WW1. The penultimate chapter is the one in which the  final battle occurs - finally, Ben, Vera and Sid catch the spy! 

In effect, the story has ended.

But we still need to tie off a few things.

The final chapter of P of P included these three things:

1. Ben, Vera and Sid have their photos taken for the local newspaper. Nice!

2. They get the good news that Ben’s dad, who had been missing, presumed dead, in the trenches in France, had been found. He was a POW and would be home soon.

3. Lastly, there is a fire at the munitions factory where Ben’s mum had been working, and Ben is relieved, because it had been affecting her health. But Ben gets to help at the local shop, so will have wages of his own to help his mum, which will be a help.

The last page finishes with Ben running to the shop with a penny to buy peppermints, humming his favourite blessing song that his dad taught him. This closes off the theme of the book, too, which is trusting in God, whatever the circumstances.

It’s actually a very relevant book for right now. You might like to get copies to give your church children – with the war in Ukraine raging as I speak, it will give your children the opportunity to talk about their fears and learn to trust God, as Ben did through the pages of the story.

Of course, you will need to consider the age of your readers, when you write your ending – but whatever age your are writing for, you do need to make sure you close off the loose ends.

We go into endings of stories in a lot more detail in the Write for a Reason Academy – do take a look at the course details if you think you could use a bit of extra help with the ending of your story. I'd love to be able to help you further in your writing. :-)

But that’s at least a little bit about endings, which I hope you have found helpful. 

If you’d like  more free writing tips, hop on over to write-for-a-reason.com, where you will find lots more reso

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