Beginning, Middle, and End Blogfest

Meadows's fix for saggy middles: Blow it up!

Fellow writer-blogger Kate Larkindale is running a Beginning, Middle, and End blogfest. A pretty great idea, since beginnings get a lot of attention among writers in the blogosphere; endings a bit less -- and middles? Least of all. And we do know that middle-of-the-novel sag tends to be a major problem for some writers (not naming any names). See Jodi Meadows's middle-fix tricks here.

I'm not sure how much you can tell from single lines, but it would be cool if one's first, exact middle (check your page count, divide in half, put finger on midpoint), and last line could tell the whole story of a novel. Here's the trio from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:

How to Write A Killer Ending, Part 3

A billion of him typing in a room would certainly generate a killer ending.

We're talking about last lines in fiction that resonate. That final sentence can seem truly satisfying when it chimes with or against the novel's opening. A reader may not get it consciously, but on some level the line stirs a memory and feels just right. We've come full circle on the wheel, the ride is over.

Here's an example from a YA novel I'm reading now, A Long, Long Sleep, by Anna Sheehan. The premise: a Sleeping Beauty tale set in the distant future. Rose has been asleep in a stass tube for sixty-two years. The opening line:

"I'd try to hold on to my stass dreams for as long as I could."

The line sets us up: We know that Rose is very comfortable in dream-mode; you can feel her clutching at sleep, refusing to relinquish herself to life.

Now the last line of the book, and I don't think I need a spoiler alert here:

"But if nothing else, I am wide awake."

It's possible to guess what happens to Rose, in the broad sense, isn't it? Her live wakefulness is exactly opposite of where she started, refusing to get up and face the world. Her eyes are open physically, emotionally, and intellectually. hold on to my dreams >>>>>>>>>>wide awake.

You can do this too -- Last lines are fun!
Here's another example, from Scott Spencer's novel, A Ship Made of Paper.

How To Write A Killer Ending, Part 2

Yesterday we were thinking about what makes a great fictional ending--a final line worthy of the 300-odd pages you've put into reading a novel. I chose (at random) two unlikely candidates:

#1"We lived happily ever after," (from A Year Down Yonder); and
#2 "Over in England they married and lived happily ever after." (from Loving, by Henry Green)

No Fariy Tale Ending
No serious writer could end a book this way without tongue firmly implanted in cheek, and Green's choice of an ending is made even twistier because as a writer, he's obsessed with the concrete, the close observation of life as it's really lived. Loving is about as far away from fairy tale as it's possible to get. It's set during WWII, and it concerns the downstairs shenanigans of butlers, maids, and cooks in an Irish castle: hilarious, a little raunchy, dialogue-based, full of psychological depth. By the time you get to the end of Loving you could practically finish sentences for his cast, you know them so well.

So to end this book with "happily ever after" conveys a kind of writerly exhaustion.

How To Write A Killer Ending, Part 1

And they lived happily ever after.

There's a lot of focus on beginnings in the writing community, and for good reason. Your beginning is going to make or break you -- it'll either hook an agent, editor, or reader, or it won't. For a good analysis of first lines, see agent Mary Kole's ongoing discussion here.

But endings are just as vital. A good one will lift your reader, make her cry, satisfy her soul. Your ending should set us down (gently or not)  at exactly the right place and time. If you've done your job, we'll also be a little sad to leave the book.

So how, exactly, do you accomplish this?

I opened two novels at random this morning and read the last lines. Here's what I found (I swear I did not rig this):

1) We lived happily ever after.
2) Over in England they married and lived happily ever after.

"Oh. My. Gawd!" I can hear you saying. "These are terrible endings!" Not so fast.