I’ve been cleaning up some relatively-new stories to submit to journals lately. I tend to overwrite on my first drafts, so this process of “cleaning up” usually consists mostly of cutting and condensing—sometimes removing entire characters and scenes that I realize I don’t need, other places removing words and sentences to give the voice the right rhythm and keep the story’s momentum pushing forward.

The ending is one place I consistently overwrite, especially when I’m writing a story that’s driven more by emotion or relationships than narrative. Even when it’s a plot-driven story, though, it’s not always obvious exactly where it should end, and just getting to the narrative conclusion doesn’t necessarily give it that satisfying sense of resolution that great short stories have. 

Like beginnings, endings have a lot of pressure on them. It’s the last thing the reader sees and what’s most likely to linger in their minds after. Writing an effective one is a balancing act: you need to give the reader enough to bring closure to the story’s narrative and emotional arcs, while reinforcing the story’s themes—and without beating the reader over the head with all of it. Getting that balance isn’t easy, but here are a few thoughts that can help if you’re struggling to get the endings right in your short stories.

Types of story endings

Whatever genre or form a story takes, they all employ some basic building blocks: plot, characters, and theme. All of these will be present in some form in the story’s conclusion, but figuring out which one is the main driver of the story can help decide what type of ending it needs. 

In plot-driven stories, the reader expects the main plot questions to be answered in some way by the story’s end. There are a few ways to do this: 

• The logical conclusion - The conflict presented in the beginning of the story resolves at its end in a way the reader would expect. This doesn’t need to mean it’s predictable. For example, if a mystery story opens with a murder, ending it with the reveal of the killer is a logical conclusion ending even if the specific identity of that killer is a surprise. The story still follows the expected steps, just in an unanticipated way.
• The twist ending – The conflict presented in the beginning resolves at the end in a way that the reader doesn’t expect from this type of story. Using the murder mystery example, a twist ending might be that the victim faked their own death and is actually still alive.
• The unintended consequence – The initial conflict is resolved in the story’s middle, but causes other problems or raises new questions that are resolved at its end. Example: A mystery story opens with a murder and the protagonist learns his own brother was the killer, then has to decide whether to break the law to help his brother.
• The nesting doll plot – The initial conflict leads the protagonist to a new, previously unknown problem or question that then becomes the main focus of the story. So for our murder mystery example, say the story starts with a murder and, in solving it, the protagonist runs afoul of the mafia. There may be multiple levels of nested conflict in this kind of story, but there’s usually a “top-level” one that is resolved in the story’s conclusion.

 …I’m sure there are other plot-driven story endings that don’t fit into one of these groups, but it’s at least enough to get the gist: when plot is driving the story, its correct ending is the point at which the major plot questions raised in the story are answered. 

In character-driven stories, the reader expects there to be some change or growth in either the main character or their relationships with other characters. The story’s natural ending point is immediately following this change or growth. Some common ways this is done:

• The epiphany – As a result of the events of the story, the protagonist discovers a personal truth or has a sudden moment of clarity or understanding that brings them to an emotional turning point. These moments are often signaled by an alteration in the protagonist’s perceptions and conveyed using descriptive language. For example, if the story’s main tension is an unhappy marriage, the protagonist could have an epiphany that they want a divorce, which is conveyed by a shift in how they describe their spouse going about a household task.
• The explosion – Tensions that have been mounting throughout the story culiminate in an intense emotional moment. For example, a family drama in which each character has secrets from the others, all of which are brought out into the open during an argument over Thanksgiving dinner.
• The impending event –  This ending can also be used for plot-driven stories, although it’s harder to achieve a feeling of resolution in that case. With character-driven stories, it can often be effective to end just before a major event whose outcome is inevitable, predictable, or unimportant. For example, a coming-of-age story about trans woman realizing her identity could end as she’s about to go in public as a woman for the first time. This resolves the main energy of the story, which is her accepting her identity; taking it further could feel like it’s starting a different story with a wider, societal lens.  

Stories that are primarily driven by a theme are fairly rare—normally the story’s theme or moral lesson is interwoven into a plot or character arc, and that’s what the reader is looking to have resolved in the story’s conclusion. When a story gets the bulk of its energy from a theme it’s normally image-based, and that’s true of the ending, too.

In an image-based conclusion, it will often feel like time stands still, and the emphasis is on descriptive language that reinforces or clarifies the meaning the writer wants the reader to take away from the story. Some common forms this takes:

• The pan-out – The view of the narrator zooms out to encompass everything that’s happening within a scene. An example could be a story about the isolation of modern life that ends on a room full of people who are each in their own world.
• The zoom-in – The view of the narrator tightens on a single object or person. An example could be a story about climate change that ends with a description of a melting ice cap.
• The tie-together – Various images introduced earlier in the story are shown to be related or connected. For example, a story about generational trauma might present isolated images from each generation then bring them together in the final scene to clarify this connection.

 

So how do you choose the right ending?

There’s another crucial building block of a well-written story: conflict or tension. I would argue that a prose piece with no tension or conflict is not a story but rather a character study or vignette. What makes a story a story is the forward energy that drives a reader to keep turning the pages.

Identifying the core points of tension in a story is the first step to deciding where and how to end it. If an analogy helps, you can think of it like a piece of music. There are chords and notes that want to resolve in certain ways—when jazz musicians hear a ii-V, they expect it to land on a I; a major 7th interval wants to resolve to an octave. 

It's similar in a story. Where you set the points of tension determines what resolution it wants to have. So, for example, if the main tension of your story is a “will they, won’t they” between two potential romantic partners, the reader should sense by the end whether they “will” or “won’t”. This doesn’t mean you need to show them hooking up, or declaring outright that they’re never going to. But the characters need to have made some kind of decision regarding this primary tension, and that decision should be discernible to the reader, even if it’s subtle.

Another factor to consider is the story’s mood, tone, and emotional resonance. At the simplest level, this can be divided into “happy endings” and “unhappy endings”, though there are certainly shades of variation in between these extremes. Another way to say this is what feeling you want to leave the reader with at the story’s conclusion. 

The difference between a happy and a tragic ending is often a matter of how much of the characters’ story you tell. Consider this series of plot points:

1. A and B meet.

2. A and B fall for each other and become lovers.

3. B cheats on A and they break up.

4. A starts dating C but has trouble trusting them.

5. A learns to trust again and marries C.

A given story could cover all of these plot points or only focus on a few of them, and how wide of a scope the story has dictates the overall emotional resonance. If it’s just plot points 4-5, for example, the ultimate mood is a happy one; if you end the story on the break-up it’s the opposite. Knowing what you want to leave your reader feeling can help you decide where to end a given character’s story on the page. 

Last words

Of course, once you know what’s going to happen at the end of your story, there’s still another critical thing you need to figure out: how you’re going to write it. Choosing the right words for the ending of a story can be just as tricksy as answering the big-picture questions.

How you write the ending at a sentence level will have a big impact on its tone and emotional resonance. Consider, if you will, the last sentence of the Edgar Allan Poe story “The Fall of the House of Usher”:

While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened — there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind — the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight — my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder — there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters — and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the “House of Usher.”

Ending on this long, complicated sentence creates a frantic feeling. This is enhanced by the vocabulary—the whirlwind’s “fierce breath” and the “deep and dank tarn” closing “sullenly” set a dark, violent mood. Naming the house as the very last words centers it as the story’s focal point, ensuring it’s the lingering image in the reader’s mind. 

Something else to note is, while this sentence is quite long, it’s also very efficient. It’s dense with sensory details and focused in on the core elements of the story—in this case, a scary house. You can get a good idea what the story was about from reading this last sentence.

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There’s no one right way to end every story—but every story has a right way to end. I occasionally luck into this on the first draft, but honestly most times I don’t. Sometimes I need to cut scenes; sometimes I need to add them. Sometimes it’s just a matter of reframing what is already there, giving it a different tone or introducing an image that solidifies the themes and meaning. It’s frustrating when an ending just doesn’t feel right, but I’ve found that once I re-focus on the core elements of the story, the right ending comes into focus, too.

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