James Scott Bell - The Last Fifty Pages: The Art and Craft of Unforgettable Endings

Copyright 2019 by James Scott Bell

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Print version:

ISBN 10: 0-910355-43-6

ISBN 13: 978-0-910355-43-8

Cover design by Josh Kenfield.

Published by

Compendium Press

Woodland Hills, CA

The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book.

Mickey Spillane

Theres an old golf saying: Its not how you drive, its how you arrive. In other words, no matter how long you hit the ball off the tee, it will make no difference to your overall score unless you can sink some dang putts! Three, four, five tries to get it into the cup? That way lies madness, broken clubs, and too many martinis in the clubhouse.

In the same way, you can write a killer opening scene with dynamic characters and lots of action. You might even sustain that through most of the book.

But if dont sink the puttif your ending is a letdownit tarnishes all the good stuff that came before.

And supremely frustrates your readers.

As Exhibit A, I give you the television series Lost.

I recall watching most of the first season. It became clear to me how the writers were compelling viewers to tune in each week. They would come up with an inexplicable cliffhanger at the end of an episode, something so surprising it would knock your figurative socks off.

The country was littered with figurative socks as Lost became a smash hit.

But I was thinking this: Do the writers know how this is going to end? Are they going to be able to wrap up all these earth-shattering mysteries?

After six seasons, the day of reckoning came.

I tracked Twitter on the night of the last episode. The response was mostly negative, running the gamut from confusion to outrage.

Then the blogs began. Some purported to explain what was inexplicable. Others gave vent to the frustration of having watched for six seasons, only to be disappointed at the end. A lot of heat was expended in comments and across platforms, with no settled answers.

Now, I do not entirely blame the writers for what happened. They were writing from episode to episode and putting in fantastic twists, as ordered by the producers. This delighted viewers, network execs, and advertisers alike.

But (he says with italicized emphasis) coming up with twisty cliffhangers is the easy part! Its not difficult at all to come up with a shocking twist at the end of an episode (or scene in your book) if you dont worry about having to justify it.

Which the Lost writers found out the hard way.

(Side note: Some time after the series ended, leaked documents and private conversations with the writers revealed this is exactly how Lost went down. One of the writers was asked by his friend Nick Santora, a writer on the television series Prison Break, How are you going to pay all this stuff off? And the writer reportedly answered, Were not. We literally just think of the weirdest most f****** up thing and write it and were never going to pay it off. Santora replied in rather colorful language that such a stratagem was, well, lets just say, not good.)

Most loyal viewers of Lost that Ive personally talked to said they loved watching the series but had to admit disappointment at the end.

So here is my wish for you: I want your readers to be so blown away by your endings that they immediately go shopping for more of your books.

A high bar?

Indeed. And it should be. Because people who spend money to buy stories are taking a risk. They want to be swept away in a fictive dream and dropped back into reality only after an ending that leaves them, in some fashion, emotionally satisfied and supremely happy that they gave your novel the time it took to read it.

Theres an old acting quote thats been variously attributed, usually to the English actor Edmund Kean (1787 - 1833). He was on his deathbed when a friend remarked how hard this must be. Kean supposedly answered, Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.

Well, beginnings are easy. Endings are hard.

But when they workmagic.

If theres one word that sums up the feeling readers crave in an ending, its satisfaction. The word is broad enough to include any type of ending, so long as it is one that leaves the reader in a positive emotional state about the reading experience as a whole. Note: this positivity does not only refer to the feeling one gets after a happy ending. It also means that the ending feels right for that story.

A novel with a downbeat endinge.g., where the Lead dies, as in a tragedycan feel right even though you wanted the guy to make it. Like in Hamlet.

On the other hand, a happy ending does not always satisfy. Theres got to be a sense that the happiness was earned by the characters, not dropped in their laps out of the blue (the deus ex machina trap, which well discuss in a later chapter).

Why do readers want a satisfying ending?

First, because they often dont get satisfaction in life. They get fired, rear-ended on the highway, have a lousy steak at an expensive restaurant. Then there are the greater tragedies, like the loss of a loved one. The list goes on. Life is relentless.

So when they read a book and get lost in a story, they are hoping that the ending will, in some way, make them glad they held on right through to the finish.

Books, theater, movies, music, dance. When these have a feeling of completeness, they impart a degree of comfort.

The other reason readers want a satisfying ending is less psychological and more practicalthey paid money! If the ending isnt up to snuff (as my grandfather used to say), then the reader feels a bit cheated. Or, in the case of a $35 hardcover, a lot cheated.