Writing that Final Paragraph

Writers spend a lot of time on their opening paragraphs, and rightly so. Then we stand on the corner, displaying our wares under a streetlamp, waiting for a reader (or agent, or editor) to drive by. When they slow down, or stop at a red light, we boldly slink out to the curb, holding the first manuscript page of our novel up to the car window, pointing to that first seductive sentence, the alluring opening paragraph, the irresistible hook that will charm them into opening the passenger door and inviting us in. Hooker and hookee, together at last in a kind of erotic literary eHarmony dream.

But—and I apologize if you wanted me to pursue this dream further—what about the final paragraph of the novel? How about that moment on page 324 when you’re exhausted from months of writing, and the plot’s resolved, and the characters have done just about all the damage you can handle, and it’s time to end the damn thing? Do you have the creative energy and vision left to write a strong ending? After all the blood, sweat, and tears, maybe you owe it to yourself and to your story to write a great ending.

Let’s look at a famous ending in fiction and see what we can learn. You’ll have your own favorite endings, the ones that have influenced your own writing, whether consciously or not, but here is one of mine.

At the end of Gone With the Wind, after a thousand pages of life with Scarlett and Rhett and friends, after all the triumphs and defeats, all the living and suffering and dying, what image does Margaret Mitchell leave us with? It’s Scarlett O’Hara alone, because Rhett Butler has just walked away from her life again, rejecting her at the end of a long dialogue scene in which the two revisit their past and current feelings. After Rhett disappears up the stairs and out of her life again, Scarlett is left alone, and in these final moments of chapter 63, and the novel, we are inside the heroine’s mind. Here are the last two paragraphs.

With the spirit of her people who would not know defeat, even when it stared them in the face, she raised her chin. She could get Rhett back. She knew she could. There had never been a man she couldn't get, once she set her mind upon him.

"I'll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I'll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day."

Romantic enough for you? Hopeful enough? Well, that’s our Scarlett. She’s going home, the place that, as Dorothy Gale reminds us in The Wizard of Oz, there’s no place like. Not a bad ending. Not a bad first novel for Margaret Mitchell. Sold a few copies. We’re left with the image of a strong heroine, going home to Tara for comfort and strength, to rise again, to win back her man.

Picture that ending. It has a sharp image, tightly focused on the central character, and it evokes strong emotions, for Scarlett, for Margaret Mitchell (imagine her writing that ending), and for the reader. The emotional ending is not gratuitous. Scarlett, her creator, and the reader have gone through an amazing journey to reach that ending; they deserve it.