How should you end a novel?
The ending should be satisfying to the reader and shouldn't drag. It must be logical (or possible, given what went before - there can be no conveniently placed gun or magic wand that wins the day without any effort from your hero and their mates), tie up most loose ends, and conclude the journey of the hero/heroine - and this character must come away wiser, stronger, and often to have grown emotionally, too. It helps if the end is upbeat, but not everyone gets the girl, characters do die or get injured, and love can be lost. The ending must never place the main character back where they started.
A lot of thought should be given to your ending, because this is the place to set up a sequel (or trilogy) by deliberately not tying up all the loose ends and giving little pointers into the future - the uneasy truce, opposition to a mixed-race (or same-sex) marriage, the threatened career, an escaped bad guy etc - that can set up a new scenario because forces still exist to mess up your main character's life again.
My plan is to blog a bit about my life for a while, then, hopefully, I can get down to giving some examples in the future of what I've been talking about.
Jack Orchison, December 12, 2013.
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