Creative Exercise:

What books or movies have left you with a sustained feeling of satisfaction? Study their Resolution scenes and take note of the elements that evoked your emotional response. Can you replicate these techniques in your own Resolution?

 

Something to Think About:

1. Does your Resolution take place directly after the Climax? Is it the last scene(s) in the book?

 

2. How have you tied off all the prominent loose ends?

 

3. How have you avoided making your ending too perfect?

 

4. Does your Resolution offer readers a sense of continuation by hinting at the lives the characters will lead after readers have closed the back cover?

 

5. Does your Resolution give readers a concrete example of how the character’s journey has changed him?

 

6. What emotional note does your Resolution strike? Does it resonate with the tone of the book as a whole (funny, romantic, melancholy, etc.)? Will it leave readers satisfied?

 

Resources:

• “Elements of a Good Ending,” Joe Moore

 

• “The Characteristic Moment Belongs at the End of Your Book Too,” K.M. Weiland

 

• “Are the Loose Ends in Your Story Too Loose?” K.M. Weiland

 

• “How Properly Structured Beginnings and Endings Hold Your Book Together,” K.M. Weiland

 

• “It’s the End of the Book as We Know It,” Krista Phillips