“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” ― Frank Herbert
A magnetic ending lingers long after the story’s been told. Endings are where things finally begin to make sense. At the end of a scene you’ll know you’ve done well when the reader absolutely must press on. Two kinds of endings are particularly powerful. The zoom-in endings and the zoom-out endings. With the same magnetic appeal of a camera zooming in or out on the image captured in its lens, endings should either bring the reader up close or pull back and provide a wider perspective.
ZOOM-IN endings invites intimacy, emotional contact that draws the reader or listener closer, sometimes uncomfortably close as they get entangled somewhat in the emotional experience.
The reader gets to feel the emotional pulse.
Zoom –in Devices:
- Disclosure in Dialogue: Enacting a dialogue is a great way to move your story forward. But it can also be used to create drama and intensity in your scenes. A dialogue with a surprise element is a great way to end a scene. It zooms the reader’s or listener’s focus in on the speaker and builds suspense for the next scene.
- The Cliffhanger: Cliffhangers leave the reader on the edge, uncertain of the outcome. A character is left in grave danger; an action is cut short at the precipice of an outcome, or an unexpected event alters reality. Draws the reader so deeply into the action that there is very little chance she will put down the book at that point, desperate to go on to find out what happens to her. Cliffhangers trigger a rush of excitement; the blood races, the adrenaline pumps and should be used sparingly.
From The Last Leaf by O Henry:
“I have something to tell you, white mouse,” she said. “Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn’t imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and – look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn’t you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it’s Behrman’s masterpiece – he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell.”
Here’s an example from J.K Rowling in “Harry Potter and the Last Sorcerer’s Stone”
“One minute to go and he’d be eleven. Thirty seconds…twenty…ten…nine – may be he’d wake Dudley up, just to annoy him – three…two…one…
BOOM.
The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.”
ZOOM-OUT endings pull away from intimacy or immediacy. It gives the reader a breather, the calm after the storm, the emotional relief from an intense scene. The reader or listener has a chance to reflect on what has just transpired.
Zoom-in Devices:
- The Visual Sketch: Think about the ending of a film. You see the landscape, the context, the era. It gives the audience some space to digest, to internalize to get deeper into the story. It grounds the reader or listener and invites her into the present moment. The visual sketch doesn’t try to be or do or change anything. It just is. It engages the senses. Done well, your audience will feel, see, hear, touch and smell what you portray. You leave a physical impression on the reader, an imprint that she will take along with her.
The sun was ironically shining on Europe that day. The calm skies were colored a beautiful shade of blue. That such a phenomenon was possible seemed inconceivable to the weary group of inmates who were placing one foot in front of the other in their desperate march for survival. Yet the clear skies served as a small reprieve to their exhausting ordeal.
- The Epiphany. It’s the contemplative point, where you wrap up the story with an introspective point, illuminating your story with its significance and how it relates to the listeners and the world at large. It’s where the mundane meets the mysterious and where the listener unites with the storyteller.
Here’s one from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.
“I turned to go home. Street lights winked down the street all the way to town. I had never seen our neighborhood from this angle. There were Miss Maudie’s, Miss Stephanie’s–there was our house, I could see the porch swing–Miss Rachel’s house was beyond us, plainly visible. I could even see Mrs. Dubose’s…”
Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough.
As you go from macro to micro, zooming in and out, intermittently allow the narrative to pan (move across the room) to other people or areas. Say you’re describing yourself in an airport waiting lounge. What else is happening? Who else is there? This conveys the setting, as well as the passage of time, in a smooth, uninterrupted flow.