Conclusion At this stage you have been working
on your short stories for a
number of weeks. You have achieved so much already!
From creating your characters,
generating your story, developing your
plot, building relationships, using
dialogue and perfecting your description. Now it is time to wrap it up! Your next step is to get writing your
conclusion – the part of your story
that we initially identified as the end. The definition of conclusion is the
end or finish of an event, process or
text. In this case, it is the end of your
short story. How important is it? The conclusion,
and how well thought out and written it is,
is vital to the success of your story. Everything has been building up to
this moment. If you have been
working suspense into your copy you
will be about to deliver your plot twist,
which we spoke about in a
previous lesson. So, what are the necessary elements
of a conclusion? - That it makes sense.
A common mistake among writers at
this stage, when so much time and
effort has gone into their story, is
to rush the end. Generally, this isn’t something that is
done on purpose – rather it is something
that occurs through an eagerness to
complete the story that has been in
mind for some time. It is important that you do not let this
happen. If you get the conclusion
wrong, it takes away from all of the
work that went before it. It must make sense – this is nothing
to do with it being a surprise but
rather that it remains in line with
what you have written thus far. – That it is a satisfactory
end to the story.
There is nothing worse, from a reader’s
perspective, than an unsatisfactory ending. Picture this – you get drawn into the
story by a fantastic introduction, you
are hanging on every word from there in.
You are not sure which way the story is
going to go at any moment but you are
looking forward to finding out… When you finally get to the end,
however, you are left feeling flat. It isn’t
that you didn’t guess what it would be,
but more that it didn’t leave you satisfied
that it was wrapped up and delivered
in the correct manner. One of the main reasons for an
unsatisfactory ending is when the reader
is left with questions. It is crucial that you
do not make this mistake. When you started out on this journey
you mapped your story out.
Throughout the process you learned
that you may or may not have stuck to
this plan in its entirety. Whether you did or not, is not a
problem. What will be a problem is
if you didn’t adjust that plan in your
mind, as your story progressed and
became clearer to you. That plan, or the variations of it, is of
utmost importance in allowing you to
finish out your story with the best result
possible. Answering any questions your
reader may have. – That it is not long-winded.
Finally, you must ensure that your
story does not lose itself and that you
do not go off on tangents. In as much as rushing the end can
be a common mistake, so too can
dragging it out be… You might find that you are struggling
to bring the story to conclusion.
You might feel that you still have so
much to say – so much that your
reader will want to know! But chances are, you really don’t. Never lose sight of the fact that
you are writing a short story. Your job now is to find a way to
get to the point, to bring all of the
elements of that story together and
to let it go. You can do this… (But if you are
still struggling, don’t worry – our
next lesson is editing!)
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