Kootenai River in NW Montana, near Canadian Border

Kootenai River in NW Montana, near Canadian Border
photo by Gene Tunick of Eureka, Montana

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Tip O'Day #47

Eve Paludan says to consider a “tie-back” ending.

The ending is the part of your novel that your reader takes away like a triumphant souvenir. When titling your novel, think about the last thing the reader will remember about your story, how it ended, and try to tie your ending back to the title of the novel (see The Body Departed by J.R. Rain). This gives the reader that "aha" moment of clever understanding, about how you made the novel come full circle back to your title.

Alternatively, you can do a tie-back ending to themes and clues from the beginning of your novel, which is also a "full-circle" technique (see The Star by Arthur C. Clarke). Think about the endings of novels that you enjoyed and try to analyze the structure of the ending. Additionally, check out these great resources about endings and examples of them:

http://sheryltut.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/six-common-types-endings/
http://www.fmwriters.com/Visionback/Vision20/themekeyes.htm
http://americanbookreview.org/PDF/100_Best_Last_Lines_from_Novels.pdf

Eve Paludan, twice a #1 Writer's Digest Book Club bestselling author, is also an editor of scholarly work at a state university, as well as a freelance fiction editor, e-publisher at NoTreeBooks.com, and a book reviewer. To contact her:

http://NoTreeBooks.com (now seeking short stories for anthologies)
http://EvePaludan.com/
http://twitter.com/evepaludan

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