The Making of a Novel: Chapter Endings

The Making of a Novel: Chapter Endings
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My goal for the week is to write one solid chapter. It's the first chapter -- at least at the moment. I had several false starts, and then got into a groove I thought was working. I had a ruthless friend read it, and she put a line on the page and said, "Here's where I start caring." I deleted everything that came before that mark because she was absolutely right. Before that mark, I was just warming up. I wrote all the way to an end, and called it "done."

Only a few hours later, while driving home from a book club (a group led by my doctor was reading my first novel, and eating really killer cheesecake), I realized that the end of the chapter was weak. It was cliche. It didn't lead to anything -- didn't open any doors, ask any questions, pose any mysteries. So I woke up this morning knowing that my chapter wasn't, in fact, done. I needed to work on the ending.

How do you make a better chapter ending?

  • Think of each chapter as it's own narrative. There is a beginning, middle, and end -- and it would be good if something is happening, or decided, or changed along the way. To read more about chapters as mini narratives, check out the Write a Better Novel blog.

  • Think about how successful page turners use chapter endings to move the story forward. Here's writer Kathy Temean analyzing how it was done in The Hunger Games. And here's Gail Carlson Levine (author of the great young adult novel Ella Enchanted, among others, and also author of Writing Magic,a fantastic writing book for teens) sharing some concrete examples of chapter endings on her blog. They're towards the bottom of the post.
  • Read great first chapters. You can do this anywhere -- your own living room, a library, a bookstore -- but a fun site to visit is The Washington Post's "First Chapter" section where they feature first chapters of recently reviewed books.
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