How to Write Endings Readers Can't Stop Talking About

You’ve heard it said that a great beginning will sell your book, but a great ending will sell your next book. So how can Christian fiction authors write good endings?

Your first page convinces readers to give your story a chance, but it’s the final page that determines whether they’ll trust you as an author, recommend your book to others, and come back for more.

Every bestseller becomes a bestseller because of word of mouth, and what creates good word of mouth? Endings.

Postmodern writing, which has become very popular recently, struggles with endings. The problem with deconstruction is that in the end, you’re surrounded by rubble. This inevitable nihilism leads to unappealing endings because readers crave meaning. The suffering your protagonist faces must mean something and accomplish something; otherwise, what’s the point?

Many postmodern writers, like George R. R. Martin, avoid ending their stories altogether to sidestep this meaninglessness. But there’s a deep sense of satisfaction in constructing something that deconstruction can’t provide. Readers feel this, too. That’s why never-ending series have become common; many modern authors find it easier to write a new installment than to craft a satisfying conclusion.

This presents an opportunity for Christian storytellers. Our worldview allows for meaningful suffering and redemptive endings. We believe in a just God who judges all things rightly. Our endings won’t always be happy, but they will be satisfying because divine justice is the ultimate satisfaction. And since God is also love, our stories can ring true even when they end happily.

As storytellers, crafting satisfying endings is hard. If we wrap things up too neatly, the ending feels predictable. If we leave too much unresolved, readers feel cheated. A truly satisfying ending ties together the promise made at the beginning and delivers an emotional payoff that leaves readers with a sense of completeness.

So how do you write a compelling ending that satisfies the reader but still leaves them hungry for more of your writing? I asked Jeanne Marie Leach, who’s helped dozens of writers become bestselling authors. She’s an author, professional editor, and writing coach.

Why are endings so important in fiction?

Jeanne: Because it’s the story. God created each of us to have a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There are conflicts and wonderful moments. The stories we write mirror this divine design.

Thomas: In many ways, our endings express our worldview. Some religions see the world as a cycle with no beginning and no end. But the Christian worldview has both. The Earth was created, and one day it will end, followed by a new creation. That sense of ultimate fulfillment echoes through Christian storytelling. We believe stories should end, not just trail off into another installment.

A lot of modern TV shows struggle to end well because their worldviews are broken. People’s memories of shows like Lost or Battlestar Galactica are tainted because the endings were unsatisfying.

Jeanne: That’s a good point. When you’re writing your ending, remember that you’re writing for thousands of readers. You want all of them to feel that sense of satisfaction, and that’s not an easy task. But as Christians, we can look to God’s story in Scripture. The Bible’s stories often end well because they reflect God’s justice and care. Even when a character dies, the story still resonates with hope.

Think of how some powerful films end with loss yet still leave you uplifted. It’s all about how the ending is handled.

Thomas: I agree. There are really two kinds of stories—comedies and tragedies—and the way you make those satisfying is very different.

My definition is a little different from Aristotle’s. In a comedy, the protagonist gets what he wants in the end. In a tragedy, he doesn’t, and sometimes that’s for the best.

It’s a Wonderful Life is technically a tragedy. George Bailey never gets what he wants. He doesn’t travel the world or build great monuments, but the ending is satisfying because he learns to appreciate what he already has. He’s transformed by his suffering.

A good ending often carries a moral truth. Bad endings usually violate morality. For example, when a character does terrible things but just prays at the end and everything is fine, that breaks the principle of sowing and reaping. We know life doesn’t work that way. God’s mercy is real, but for an ending to feel satisfying, it must align with how reality works.

Jeanne: Right. In It’s a Wonderful Life, George has clear goals. He works and sacrifices to achieve them, but each failure leaves him more desperate. In the end, he gets what he needs, not what he wants. He learns that his life matters and that he’s deeply loved. That’s what makes it so powerful. He doesn’t get what he wanted, but he gets what his soul needed, and that touches our hearts.

How does foreshadowing facilitate a satisfying ending?

Thomas: Foreshadowing creates satisfying endings by planting clues early that pay off later. The opening scene of It’s a Wonderful Life sets up George Bailey’s entire arc. Young George is in the pharmacy, wishing on a match flame. The girl who whispers “I’ll love you for the rest of my life” into his deaf ear becomes his wife later. That opening scene foreshadows his choices and the life he builds. The ending rhymes with the beginning, which makes the story feel complete.

So how do you set up that kind of foreshadowing? Is it something authors typically add during revisions, or is it planned from the start?

Jeanne: That’s often the difference between writing methods. If you’re a seat-of-the-pants writer, you might just jump in and start writing when an idea strikes. But what really works is doing at least a little planning in advance.

Before you start chapter one, you need to know your characters. Write down what they want out of life, what their goals are, and what they’re willing to do to achieve them. Identify their needs. Are they spiritual? Are they angry with God for taking their mother when they were twelve?

People carry so much inside them. If you know your characters well, you can bring all of that back at the end and create a satisfying resolution. They may not get what they want, but if they get what they truly needed all along, that’s what makes a story satisfying.

Thomas: It’s important to know what kind of story you’re telling and what the core conflict is. The antagonist in It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t Potter, the banker, even though most people assume it is. He has nothing to do with the ending. In fact, Potter encourages George Bailey to chase his false dream of leaving town. The real antagonist is George’s brother, who’s barely in the film but constantly thwarts George’s plans to leave. His brother goes to college instead of George, fights in the war, and even when he returns home, George still can’t leave because of family obligations. In the end, it’s that relationship that must be resolved.

People sometimes ask, “Why doesn’t Potter get punished in the end?” But the story isn’t about him; it’s about George’s relationship with his family. The entire narrative is foreshadowed in the opening scene when George loses his hearing while rescuing his brother. The whole story flows from that moment.

How does conflict affect the ending?

Thomas: To determine characters’ goals, you need to know the core conflict of the story. Is it man versus himself, man versus society, man versus God, man versus nature, or man versus man? That core conflict must be resolved by the end, or the story will feel incomplete. Not every conflict needs to be tied up, but the central one must be.

You can learn more about writing conflict in our episode called Writing Conflict: How to Keep Your Protagonist on Their Toes.

Jeanne: Definitely. I started out as a seat-of-the-pants writer and discovered I had left so many holes in my stories. I had to go back, rewrite, and take better care of the story. Eventually, I realized I needed to plan.

You have to know where you’re going. You have to have a theme, and that theme must be resolved or brought full circle at the end. Some writers can do well without planning, but I wasn’t one of them. I learned that writing requires more work than I expected. I couldn’t just write freely and hope it worked out.

Thomas: In some ways, there’s not as much difference between outliners and seat-of-the-pants writers as people think. Seat-of-the-pants writers just create a detailed outline in the form of a rough draft. Once you see it that way, you realize the outliners are actually doing less work. They’re just outlining before writing instead of after.

Jeanne: One of the main things to ask is whether the character achieved his external goal. Did he get what he needed, even if he didn’t know he needed it? Is that internal need spiritual, like forgiveness or reconciliation with God?

How do the characters’ wounds affect the ending?

Jeanne: Characters also need layers. Your character has a wound; it’s something painful that happened earlier in life. That wound leads to a lie the character believes. Maybe a father said, “You’re stupid,” and the child believes it. That lie leads to the fear of stepping out or trying anything new. And that fear produces a flaw, like passivity or self-doubt.

All these elements must work together throughout the story. By the end, the character must confront and shed the wound, recognize the lie for what it is, and overcome the flaw. When that happens, readers feel deeply satisfied because the transformation feels real. But if the character remains stuck—still fearful, believing lies, and never growing—the story will feel hollow. That’s not a satisfying ending.

Thomas: That’s especially true for stories centered on internal conflict. A good example of a story driven by external conflict is the 2020 film Greyhound, written by and starring Tom Hanks. It’s set in World War II, where Hanks plays a destroyer captain escorting supply ships across the Atlantic while being hunted by German U-boats. His external goal is to keep the convoy safe, and his internal need is simply to rest.

For forty hours straight, he’s on his feet, leading his crew through battle without sleep. By the end, after losing ships and men, he finally reaches safety. As he walks to his cabin, the crew silently watches him with admiration, and soldiers on nearby transports applaud him for keeping them alive. He kneels to pray, then crawls into bed and sleeps.

It’s such a simple ending; he is finally resting. But it’s profoundly satisfying because it completes both the external and internal arcs. He’s fulfilled his duty, and he’s finally at peace. That’s the power of a well-resolved story.

How does a character’s emotion affect a satisfying ending?

Jeanne: He goes through so much that he simply needs to sleep. I would not have thought that could work, but Tom Hanks often makes films where the character finally releases the tension at the end.

I am thinking of his movie Captain Phillips, where he is taken hostage by Somali pirates while captaining a large ship with shipping containers. At the very end, after he does his best and does not cause trouble, he gets back on the boat and lets it all out. I was crying with him. He could not show weakness to his captors, but you can tell the experience marked him deeply. That is the kind of story he likes to do.

Thomas: It is the release of tension.

Part of this is masculine writing versus feminine writing. Stories geared toward men tend to feature more external conflict. At no point in Greyhound does Tom Hanks’s character doubt himself or become introspective. He does not have a dramatic internal arc.

He is a good captain the whole time. Although he makes mistakes and occasionally shows poor judgment, his mistakes are not moral failures. At one point, the Germans trick them and he wastes ammunition on an empty patch of ocean. The German U-boats are very sneaky. This kind of story resonates more with men.

I have an episode about writing for men versus writing for women. Your target audience affects your storytelling.

Sometimes, a male author writing for a male audience will be told by a female editor to add a bigger internal journey, but he does not always need one. You can have a satisfying story without it.

For example, the Tom Hanks character in Greyhound did not need to confront an internal lie. I watched it with a group of dads. No one asked for more inner arc. We discussed the historical details and strategic context. Knowing your target reader helps you craft a maximally satisfying ending.

How can I write believable male characters?

Jeanne: You are right. When I first started writing, ACFW was very new. It was mostly women writing romance, and some tried to write male characters who were not believable. You cannot write a male character and give him female motivations and reactions.

Thomas: Men do not think about their emotions as often as you might assume from reading a romance.

Jeanne: When you write for your audience, you must know who they are.

I see many women trying to write the next Jane Austen novel. You are writing for today’s readers. Why add “thou” and “thee” and make it overly formal? That is not how we talk. Do not imitate nineteenth-century prose for twenty-first-century readers. Use contractions. If you make the style too formal, readers will tire of it and close the book.

Thomas: There is a French term, dénouement, which is the ending after the ending. It refers to the final resolution after the climax, where loose ends are tied up and the new normal is established. Most stories build rising tension to a climax and then a resolution. Some have an extended dénouement. The Lord of the Rings has a long one. Greyhound has a very short one. They sink the last submarine, see the airplanes, realize the ships are safe, he is applauded, he goes to bed, and the credits roll.

Sometimes I get frustrated when a book resolves the conflict and ends too fast. I want to enjoy the happy world earned through suffering. Do not just say they lived happily ever after. However, authors can go too far and let it drag, which weakens the moment of resolution.

**How much dénouement is enough?**

Jeanne: Many writers rush the end. I have edited books full of engaging conflict that resolve the last threads in two pages. This is settled, that is settled, and then it is over. No. Let us see the character’s new normal. Show how they act and react now that they know the truth, and the main problem is resolved. Do not just tick boxes.

Thomas: Some of this is genre-dependent. I see a continuum. Mystery often ends soon after we learn whodunit. Thrillers and suspense are similar. On the other end is epic fantasy. The Lord of the Rings and The Wheel of Time end slowly and show the new order.

How do romance endings differ from other genres?

Jeanne: Romance is its own thing. Readers know early who will get together. They do not know how or when. A common Hallmark trope is the heroine seeing the hero hugging someone at the post office, and she assumes he now loves another woman. That device is overused. Still, even when the end is exactly what you expect, romance readers will read it.

Thomas: Hallmark has more viewers than HBO around Christmas. People say they want surprise, but they often want the predictable story they love.

How much dénouement do you include in a romance? Is it closer to mystery, where they kiss and the credits roll, or closer to epic fantasy, where you linger in the happily ever after?

Jeanne: It is story, story, story, kiss, then done. It is closer to mystery than to epic fantasy. There is nothing epic about it. Readers can figure things out or root for the couple, but the genre knows how to work our tender hearts.

What makes a romance ending satisfying?

Thomas: I’m going to share my theory about what makes a romance ending satisfying, and then I want you to tell me if I’m right.

Since we already know the couple will get together, the ending itself doesn’t make one romance more satisfying than another. What makes it satisfying is when the ending feels earned. The suffering and trials the couple endures make the ending believable and inevitable. Each event causes another event in a logical chain, and by the time the story concludes, we feel that the characters have earned their happiness.

It’s not enough that they simply end up together. The journey, filled with misunderstandings, conflicts, and emotional costs, must justify the conclusion. When that happens, it feels deeply satisfying.

couple embracing signaling the end of a romance story

Jeanne: That could be true, but I tend to think we know what’s going to happen and we love it anyway. Each story is different, but the familiarity is comforting.

I currently have about fifteen Christmas movies recorded, and they’re my favorites. In those, the man and woman often connect before the climactic moment. They already like each other and work together to save a family business or their town, and that partnership makes the ending feel good.

I read nearly everything I can get my hands on. Even though I know what’s coming, I can’t get enough of it. The twists are predictable, but that’s part of the charm.

Thomas: That probably ties back to the target audience.

One of the most influential works of fiction in the last twenty years is the anime Sword Art Online. It inspired entire genres, including litRPG fiction. Interestingly, it’s a romance that appeals to both men and women, though mostly to men, given its action-oriented setting.

The couple gets together halfway through the story, breaking the usual romance rules. After that, they battle monsters side by side. It’s a story of a married couple facing external challenges together, which is very different from the typical Western romance built around internal tension or enemies-to-lovers conflict.

In Sword Art Online, even after the couple falls in love, the man must go on a quest to rescue his captured wife. The relationship is solid; the conflict is external. It’s been incredibly influential, creating multiple subgenres because it defies Western expectations.

Hallmark stories, by contrast, follow a more traditional three-act Western structure, while Sword Art Online follows the Eastern two-act structure, which ends differently but is still satisfying. The story actually began as a manga before becoming an anime.

Thomas: In Western civilization’s storytelling tradition, what makes a romance ending more satisfying than the last one a reader finished?

Jeanne: I think it’s that we’ve invested time in the characters. We’ve grown to love them and want them to succeed.

In Western culture, we believe in the American dream. We believe anyone can achieve their goals if they work hard. So when the couple finally overcomes their obstacles and finds happiness, we feel like they’ve earned it. That’s the kind of story I edit most often, and I never tire of it because every story is different.

What mistakes do authors make when writing endings?

Jeanne: The biggest one is when the ending feels rushed. The story builds beautifully, then in the last two pages, everything wraps up too quickly—this is resolved, that’s fixed, and suddenly it’s over. It’s not believable. Real life doesn’t tie up that neatly.

Another mistake is with series. Some authors don’t properly end the first book, leaving major plot points unresolved so that readers have to buy the next one to find out what happens. Sometimes it takes a year for the sequel to be released. I find that frustrating, and I’ve even thrown books away because of it. If an author does that, I usually won’t buy another book from them. It feels like a betrayal of trust.

Thomas: You have to answer questions with answers, not just with more questions. A book should never feel like a commercial for the next one. That kind of approach reflects a gnostic worldview, which is anti-Christian. By that, I mean it reflects the spirit of antichrist. Gnosticism is everywhere once you know how to look for it. One of its key elements is the pursuit of hidden knowledge.

In gnostic storytelling, the hero moves from teacher to teacher, gaining deeper levels of secret wisdom, or “gnosis.” A classic example is The Matrix. Neo goes to Trinity, then Morpheus, then the Oracle, and each time he gains greater gnosis and, therefore, more power. Eventually, he looks within himself and achieves mastery over the Matrix, becoming a kind of antichrist figure with control over his world.

It’s a twisted version of Christianity. True Christianity doesn’t hide the truth behind secret doors. When someone becomes a Christian, they’re given the entire Bible. Everything is there in plain sight. You can spend your life learning more, but there’s no secret knowledge reserved for the elite.

Gnostic cults like the Freemasons promise secret knowledge. You join, and they induct you into secret rituals. That mindset can creep into storytelling, too. We need to fight it by writing satisfying endings that resolve the story rather than promising more secret revelations in the next book.

What happens when an ending leaves too much unresolved?

Jeanne: I once read a historical novel set in 1700s America. It followed two families, one wealthy and one poor. The poor mother’s baby became sick, but she couldn’t take the child to the doctor. So she and the wealthy mother secretly switched babies so the sick one could be treated. But then the Redcoats invaded, the townspeople fled, and each woman took the wrong baby. The book ended there. I was furious.

A year later, the second book came out, so I bought it, hoping for a resolution. The story picked up years later when the girls were teenagers, but it still didn’t resolve the plot. I threw the book away. That was not fair to readers.

Thomas: That’s what I’d call leaving a dangling thread. You don’t have to answer every question, and leaving a few details open for discussion can be good, but the core conflict must be resolved. It’s fine to end with a cliffhanger, but only if you’ve earned it by answering the major questions first.

A good story has a try-fail cycle. The protagonist faces challenges, overcomes or fails, and grows. Along the way, the author plants questions and then answers them. This builds trust with the reader. By the end, readers feel satisfied because the promises made in the story have been fulfilled. You can still plant one new question during the dénouement to lead into the next book, but you must prove you can deliver answers first.

Jeanne: I’ve read books that kept me thinking about them for days. Even though the main story was resolved, I couldn’t stop wondering what might happen next. That’s the kind of response you want. You want readers to crave more because they loved the world and characters, not because you left everything unanswered. Each reader will have different lingering questions, and that’s fine. It shows they’re invested.

How can beta readers help with endings?

Thomas: This is where beta readers are invaluable. One of the best questions to ask them is, “What questions did you have while reading, and were they answered?” Sometimes a reader will have a question you never thought of, but it really matters to them and to many others. You might be able to resolve it easily in revision.

Three questions every satisfying ending must answer:

Did the protagonist achieve their goal?
Was the resolution earned through struggle?
Does the ending reflect the story’s theme?

For nonfiction writers, a satisfying ending comes from answering the questions promised in the book’s marketing.

What final advice or encouragement do you have for authors?

Jeanne: Whatever you do, especially in today’s market, make sure your book is professionally edited. Traditional publishers no longer have the editorial teams they used to. They expect manuscripts to be polished before submission. Even good books are rejected if they’re not well edited.

They can tell immediately. Something as small as too many “that’s” or unnecessary words signals an unpolished draft. New authors often don’t know what they don’t know, so get professional help.

Satisfying endings resolve core conflicts, deliver on opening promises, and provide emotional payoff. Use foreshadowing, avoid rushed conclusions, and ensure your ending reflects your story’s worldview.

Connect with Jeanne Marie Leach

Need help editing your novel? Contact Jean Marie Leach at NovelImprovement.com

How to Write Endings Readers Can’t Stop Talking About