Cut the Cord

But first you have to write the ending.

Correction: First off, you must avoid any ending in which some godlike savior comes into the story to take care of everything and everyone. This is a deus ex machina, a last-minute, last-ditch, make-everything-right, sort-out-the-kinks-and-crinkles ending that satisfies no one.

Now: write an ending that is not deus ex machina.

We have already described one kind of ending. Beginning in medias res allows us to end with the beginning, which, done well, will then be surprising or informative, or both.

Another well-known type of ending is demonstrated by James Joyce’s collection of stories titled Dubliners. (Joyce was Irish and later moved to Europe.) The ending is called an epiphany. Epiphanies were previously moments in which a scientific or religious thought shed light on a text, the reader or observer or congregation jolted into understanding. In his first book of fiction,... More...