Writing a good conclusion of a story, a really good conclusion is so important, vital in fact! A reader might forgive a less than inspiring start, and get into your novel and become involved with the characters and action, but if they are left with an unsatisfactory ending, they may be discouraged from wanting to read another of your books – when I say ‘your’, I mean ‘my’!
Just recently I have started to read a series of crime novels by an author, and although the books are real page turners, and in fact I read them way later than I should, the endings have been disappointing. In the books I have read so far (and I’m reading another now, and will read more in the series) there have been quite long introductions to the action, setting the scene, so the reader has a context for what is to come – although in one of them I did get a little confused by the number of characters introduced at once – but maybe that’s just me. The plots are intriguing, complex, but on the whole within the genre, believable, and the denouements are exciting – and this is where the books become unput-downable!
However… to maintain the surprise and the excitement, the reason behind the crimes, and the motives, are kept concealed from the reader – to make it more shocking and surprising when they are revealed! I’m not suggesting I am as good as this writer – she’s properly published and I’m only self-published – but I do the same in my novels, delay an explanation until after the action so the reader is shocked/surprised/gripped. What happens next, in terms of the narrative, is really important so the reader has the required satisfactory ending
An explanation, tidying up all the loose ends, explaining things which have been concealed, going over the main strands of the plot to put it all in a context – all this has to be carefully, neatly and completely done. The reader doesn’t want to be left thinking ‘but what happened to so-and-so?’, ‘why did she say/do/think that/’, ‘who was the mysterious Peruvian at the bus stop?‘ etc. A dear friend, and helpful and kindly critic, mentioned she thought one of my endings was too abrupt, even though everything was perfectly explained; since then I have worked really hard to balance the length of the conclusion, long enough but not too long. After all the excitement, I don’t want my readers bored!
In the series of books I have been reading, I have noticed that in some, after the page-turning attention-grabbing excitement of revealing ‘who dunnit’, there is then a long, very long, in fact tediously long explanation – maybe it’s me, maybe I don’t have a good enough attention span, but with the last book I read, even though it was a cracking story, and a believable but unexpected motive to the crime, the page after page of explanation and reasoning just left me floundering. I guess it’s like a good meal, an interesting starter, a cracking main meal, and then a stodgy dessert that you have to wade through.
Because I have to rely on myself to publicise my work and haven’t got a big publishing house and professional agents behind me, I haven’t got TV series with star actors made from my novels, I have to work extra hard for my readers… I want them to come back and read more of my stories! So…. a satisfactory ending!
If you haven’t read my novels yet, here is a link – they are available as e-readers for Kindles, or Kindle apps:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=lois+elsden
Lois Elsden 