Build Your Book Month<\/a> had an interesting event on promises and payoffs: how to insert things in the first four-fifths of your book that can pay off beautifully in the very final bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOften, that\u2019ll be a major plot reveal, but it can be subtler than that. A joke can find its punchline, a character can deliver something you sort of guessed was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s quite a lot to say there, but maybe I\u2019ll leave that for another day. Because another thing that endings do is explain to the reader what the moral \/ emotional consequence of all this is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How to Guide Readers\u2019 Emotions at the End of a Novel<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Should the reader end up happy? Or sad? Or excited and triumphant? Or in some bitter-sweet place? Or in tune with birdsong and the present moment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That sounds dumb. Haven\u2019t we just told the story? Are readers daft?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But our spoken words alone don\u2019t convey meaning \u2013 we use tone and body language and eye contact to present a complete picture. It\u2019s the same with books. Yes, the final plot outturn gives readers a good idea of how to feel, but the writer needs to do more than just deliver events. You need to say, in effect, \u201cHere\u2019s how you need to experience what you\u2019ve just read.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All that sounds a little hypothetical, so here\u2019s an example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using Character and Emotion to Make a Plot Resolution Matter<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
In Love Story, with Murders<\/strong>, the second of my Fiona books, the tangible outcomes of the ending are as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n- Fiona solves one crime (Aussie bad guy who killed a young woman.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- She also solves another (arms-dealing by a Welsh engineering firm)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- In the process, she also finds the pair of contract killers who almost killed her. She knocks the Scottish one senseless and leaves him for the police to find. She also (sort of accidentally) kills the Norwegian one.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The arms-dealers are not prosecuted, because they use political connections to get their arms-dealing legitimised.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s quite a lot of outcome, and some of those outcomes are ambiguous. (eg: arms-dealers are caught, but not caught.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The emotional framing around those outcomes was absolutely key to how the reader understood them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How to Create an Emotionally Satisfying Ending<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s how I did it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fiona solves one crime (Aussie killer)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Welsh police don\u2019t have enough evidence for a conviction, but the Australian cops do. Fiona passes this information on to the parent of the dead woman \u2013 and asks to go up to see the girl\u2019s bedroom, which had been kept completely unchanged:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut the room is not the same. The duvet has changed. The poster is no longer on the wall. The wardrobe is empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My look must express my surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Oh, after you came last time, you and Mrs Watkins, John and I realised it was time to move on. We shouldn\u2019t still hold on to it all. We\u2019ve kept everything precious. The photographs, of course, we could never throw those away.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For a moment, she\u2019s on the brink of more tears. But it\u2019s been five years. Five heading towards six. And even tears must have an end.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That little bit of text says that policing is about giving people that sense of release. That even without a domestic conviction and trial, life is now moving on again. It\u2019s hardly triumph, Jack Reacher style, but it is the (quiet) emotional movement that this couple needed. There\u2019s still grief, but there\u2019s the emergence of life again too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Writing a Powerful Ending<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Accidentally kills a Norwegian killer<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nFiona and her scary friend Lev try to capture a Norwegian bad guy, who has a laptop full of electronic secrets that Fiona wants. But the bad guy, Olaf, burns his house down rather than reveal those secrets. In the chase, he gets a bullet in the ankle from Lev, but nevertheless runs away as best he can across a northern Norwegian landscape, in spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lev doesn\u2019t shoot again, but \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLev has his sights fixed on Olaf\u2019s back. He adjusts his posture by minute amounts. Either to keep pace with Olaf\u2019s movements or to move his aim onto different targets. Head. Chest. Leg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Olaf, as though feeling that invisible pressure, turns and looks at us. Motionless. A black figure against the white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t know what we look like to him. Don\u2019t know what his thoughts are, as he sees his house ablaze, his possessions gone, his cover blown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What do you think when you\u2019re in that position? What do you think as you turn back to your direction of travel and see your future? A frozen lake. A facing slope of rock, snow and pines. On the run for ever, uphill and alone, shoulder wounded and ankle smashed. And a rifle bead tightening on your back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know what he thinks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do know that when I was alone in the snow, I didn\u2019t feel on my own. I felt myself part of the police family. Felt Buzz. Felt Mam and Dad and Ant and Kay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I say to Lev, \u2018Leave him.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is mercy, certainly, but it\u2019s more than that. It opens an action-type ending out into an existential one. What is it like to lose your home, to be on the run, to feel the sniper\u2019s rifle \u2018tightening on your back\u2019?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s no rage here. No sense of justice. No wham-bam action even. (There was some just a couple of pages previously.) It\u2019s a quiet, sad, wondering ending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Olaf continues to stumble away, gets onto thin ice, and perishes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c[There\u2019s] a bluishness in the ice. A difference in the way it carries the snow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Olaf is moving with acute care now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With fear, I think you would say. With fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I see him jolt. His boot has gone through the ice. He recovers but proceeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I don\u2019t want him to. All of a sudden, I don\u2019t want this anymore. I want him to retrace his steps. We\u2019ll share a smoke, shake hands, forget about all this. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He goes on. Stumbles once more and recovers. Then another stumble \u2013 and he\u2019s gone. The grey icefield suddenly darkens as water blackens it. Olaf\u2019s head and hat are visible above the ice. His arms. He\u2019s trying to roll his weight out of the water back onto the ice. But each time he tries it, the ice shelf crumbles beneath him. He\u2019s too far now for us to see his movements in any detail. He\u2019s a fly struggling against glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It doesn\u2019t take long. We\u2019re too distant to witness the final choreography in any detail. We just see that, one moment, there is a head above the water and the next moment only a level silence. Black, silver, white. And moving water. A glimpse of moving water.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s a death, but it\u2019s described from a distance, almost like a nature painting. It\u2019s very quiet. The mood is one of existential wonder at existence and the possibility of non-existence. A few moments later, Lev and Fiona start smoking a joint, and Lev asks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You are all right?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Yes.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lev laughs at that. Takes the joint from me and draws hard on it. \u2018Stupid question this one. Everybody always ask it, including me. Are you all right?<\/em> Everybody says yes. Always this: yes<\/em>. And \u2013\u2019 he waves his hand at the lake of ice. \u2018Is still a person. Boof!<\/em>\u2019\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\nWe lie on our backs in the snow, passing the joint to and fro, laughing for no reason at all, except that we are alive and we might not have been, and the light is golden and it might not have been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why Emotional Payoffs Matter More Than Plot Outcomes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s interesting reading this back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s been quite a lot of violence in the ending. The Scottish killer is beaten up. The Norwegian one killed. A house burned. Some police raids and the rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the predominant mood is one of quiet, and somehow an alertness to that sense of being alive \u2013 what that means, when in the presence of death. And it is, I suppose, a happy ending, for all that the police-style outcome wasn\u2019t quite what Fiona wanted. But a bereaved couple get to live again and for Fiona herself, \u2018the light is golden and it might not have been.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So guide the reader. Promises and payoffs aren\u2019t just about plot outcomes, they\u2019re about emotional ones too, and the emotional ones are the bits that matter the most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n