Chapter Endings Are as Important as Beginnings

I’ve started the second draft of my next book and as I reread several chapters I realized my endings were not very riveting. Ho hum, shall I turn the page? If I don’t want to turn the pages of my own book, why would any reader be willing to? So I took a closer look at the problem and started focusing on endings that would compel a reader to keep going.

I skimmed through some books to see how those authors ended their chapters. Here’s one from Deception Point by Dan Brown. “Rachel felt weightless for an instant, hovering over the multimillion-pound block of ice. Then they were riding the iceberg down – plummeting into the frigid sea.” The reader is not likely to put the book down at this point, at least until they find out what happened to Rachel and her friend. Brown could have ended with something like: “Rachel stood motionless on the block of ice and prayed the block wouldn’t fall into the sea.” Nah.

Here’s another. “Emergency Room. Code Blue. Susan ran for the elevator.” This is from Chelsea Cain’s The Night Season. What if Cain had stopped at Code Blue? Would it have the same impact as her running for the elevator?

I believe this idea of compelling endings is not only important for fiction but for non-fiction as well. Take Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken. “Sometime that day, or perhaps the day before, he had taken off his uniform, picked up a sack of rice, slipped into the Naoetsu countryside, and vanished.” Vanishing, dying, running, falling, are all great ways to end a chapter on a high, cliffhanger note.

Scene endings can follow this rule to some extent, but it might get tiresome if every scene did. I think you have to let the reader rest once in a while and catch up with the action.

Not all chapter endings must end on an action note either. Many can end with inner conflict or conflict between characters. Gives the chapter tension. What happens between these two people next? Does Anna May leave her husband? Does mom throw Maynard out of the house? Does little Davey start crying? Is Barbara in danger of being fired, of losing her health insurance, of missing a plane to an important event? If you care about the characters, (a blog for another day) you will turn the page.

I’d love to hear some chapter endings you think are great . . . or terrible. When we can recognize what works, our writing benefits in the long-run.