#chapter endings

Wrap up the chapter...

At a location change

At a natural pause

At a point-of-view change

In the middle of one character’s speech

In the middle of something interesting

When it feels like it's dragging

With a cliffhanger

With a resolved/unresolved ending

With a shocking last line

With a surprise interruption/unexpected ending

With a tied ending (the chapter ends where it began)

With an ambiguous ending

With dialogue that demands answers

With emotional reflection

With foreshadowing

Chapter endings leave your reader with a sense of what to expect going forward. 

Cliffhanger endings are the hallmark of page-turner fiction, but perhaps you want to leave your reader with something more subtle to contemplate.

Your chapter endings should encourage your audience to keep reading.

Try to make the end of every chapter as exciting as the opening lines of the chapter—if your chapter ends on a flat, boring note, your reader may give up on your overall story.

Every chapter should end with a "pop", regardless of genre.

Those last few lines are what the reader remembers before they pause. An otherwise beautifully crafted chapter can be ruined if it flops at the finishing line.

Find the suspense point – the lines that make readers ask questions – and use them to wrap up your chapter.

And pay attention to the very last sentence. Sometimes less is more.

this might be the first writing advice ask i’ve gotten that i feel i have a concise enough answer to address it right when i get it—this is a great question!

the easiest response is that it gets intuitive the longer you write. i often write my outline and then break the book into chapters as i draft it, so that i’m not held to any specific structure before i start.

a good chapter ending serves one of two purposes: either it’s a place to stop and rest (the place a reader can stop and go make dinner) or it’s a command to Keep Reading Right This Second So Help Me God (hooky). what a chapter ending should aways do: keep readers interested.

you’ll notice that the flavours of chapter endings vary by genre (i.e. thrillers tend toward the second sort of ending, whereas a lot of contemporary novels will tend toward the former)

wordcount doesn’t matter. a chapter is over when it feels over.

your chapter might be over if:

you can use the last paragraph to ask a big ol ‘what if’ question in the narrative (hooky).

you’re at a resting point for your characters, which could be literal, like nightfall, or more figurative, like a mental resting point (dinnertime)

your characters just found out some HUGE information (HOOKY)

your gut says it’s over (can be either)