The Ending That Wasn’t Real
We’ve all read stories where we became a silent inhabitant of a fictional world. We lived in it and felt the emotions of the characters as if they were dear friends. We mourned when it was over, not just because our journey had ended, but because that world felt like it would go on without us. Those are the books that stay with us, and ones that we may some day return to.
Conversely, there are books that draw us in, only to leave us in the cold, with a conclusion that feels disjointed — wrong. We feel let down or even annoyed. If the ending doesn’t fit, the entire experience falls apart.
Last year, in the midst of the pandemic, I finished my debut novel. I took it through several rounds of editing, reinforcing the observation that I am indeed typo blind. I was proud but fatigued when I gave it another full read after letting it sit for a few months.
The ending that I had written did the job. My beta readers seemed to find it satisfying. No major complaints from cold readers seemed like a good sign. But there was something that didn’t settle right. I kept turning it over in my head. Finally, I came to the conclusion that all writers dread: The ending that I had spent months writing and revising was not the real ending. Damn.
It would be months before I picked my manuscript back up again. Along with so many other people, the pandemic threw me a major curveball. Not only did it upset our routines and the kid-free time when I did my writing, it was a mental struggle to spend time in the dark post-pandemic world that my novel is set in. So I put it to the side and left it to collect dust. We all made sacrifices over the last year. I count myself lucky that this was one of the bigger sacrifices I had to make. With the coming of 2021, I decided that I needed to bring my novel back to life one way or another. I started waking up at 5:30am every weekday to write.
I had left things in a challenging spot. My ending wasn’t the real ending. That meant that I would have to go back in and rework the entire conclusion. Sounds simple enough, right? Just lop off the stuff that didn’t work and start fresh. How hard could that be?
Unfortunately, it’s really freaking hard — at least if you want to do it right. You can’t just go in, pick a spot to amputate and then stitch on a divergent plot line. There are nerves and arteries that run all the way through a novel, and major changes to any part of the novel means that you are going to have consequences that ripple through the entire thing.
This wasn’t just a simple rewrite. This was a major overhaul with a lot of process behind it. Not to mention I was completely winging it. I’ve written a full length screenplay before, but never had to alter any major sections of the plot. This was going to be an adventure.
I started off with a basic outline of what needed to happen in my final act. I hit the big picture moments, then began to build it out until I had a solid idea of how those moments needed to unfold. Before getting too deep into the reconstruction, I went back through and did another full edit of the novel, working my way to the section of the proposed amputation. This helped make sure that I was maintaining continuity and highlighting areas that could be impacted by adjustments to my conclusion.
Next, I drafted a comprehensive outline. This five page document included every important moment that had to unfold in my final act. As I went about that exercise (which took weeks), I noted new ways that I could deepen the connection to earlier moments in the novel. Characters got new scenes, certain emotional moments were heightened, and new details were added. Once I had my roadmap, it was time to dig into the writing.
That’s been my world lately, and as I write, that world feels right. My characters are getting their dues, and their futures are unfolding in a more natural way. It’s set me back months, but it’s a sacrifice I had to make. My characters deserve their real ending… and so do my future readers!