Have you ever wondered what makes a story worthy enough that it sells millions of copies? The answer can be expanded over a number of factors for example effective marketing, author’s reach and reputation, the storyline, the audience/age group it addresses and some more. But do you also wonder what is the most compelling of these? The story! Yes, the story, itself, is the prime determinant. People crave a good story. Again, there are factors that make a story count as a good story. We are only going to talk about one of these many factors today – the story endings.

A person reading a book reads till the end because they want to know how the story resolves (if it resolves at all). If you are a regular reader, you might have come across story endings that leave you feeling not satisfied. You might also have come across heavy endings – heavy in terms of the message they leave you with; often powerful enough they stick with you for a lifetime. Happy endings are the most common and we all have either read them or watched them happening in a movie. There are also such books and stories that end in so casual a sentence that readers find it difficult to tell themselves that the book has actually ended. These and more, we are going to discuss in detail.

Story ending (also called resolution) is a very important part of the writing craft. The ending should not be a deviation, it should resonate with the story. The ending should not break your readers’ trust (it does not, however, mean that it must always be a happy ending). It should justify the events of the story and character development all along. Let us talk about the different types of story endings and see what type of ending goes well with what genre.

Classical/Resolved Ending

The majority of the works of fiction end in a resolved ending, that is why it has also been called a classical ending. Such a story ending implies a complete resolution of events. It does not leave any loops unattended. The reader is informed about the fate of all the characters. Both the main and subplots are brought to a decisive conclusiveness. Now a classical ending can be both tragic and comic. The resolution might be such that all the characters are destined to a happy ever after or it can be disastrous and tragic.

If we speak about genre viz a viz the resolved ending, mostly romance fiction has this type of a story ending. Children’s books also usually end in the classical way. You will also find short stories and YA fiction confirming this type of ending, but not always. 

Unexpected/Twist Ending

Such endings will catch you by surprise. The very name is indicative of the nature of an unexpected or a twist ending. Story writing leads to a plot twist that appears at the very end of the story. Again, it can be both tragic and comic but it always catches the reader off guard. Twist endings are very particular to mystery and crime thrillers. A mystery keeps the reader guessing all the time and a reader is susceptible to develop a certain resolution of the plot. But a twist ending dodges the imagination of the reader and turns the course of events in an unanticipated direction. In crime thrillers, the ending is supposed to reveal who committed the crime and how. A writer can create a lot of intrigue and awe when writing a twist ending for the crime novel where the killer turns out to be the person who was the least evil, for example.

Tie-back Ending

A tie-back ending is usually very interesting and fun to read. Readers often like this type of ending more than others. In this type of story ending, the plot is brought back to exactly the same place where it all started. This is very common in movies where you feel like experiencing a déjà vu. Love stories are often tied this way, where coincidences occur and a series of events repeat themselves at a different time.

Crystal Ball Ending

In this type, the magic crystal ball rolls and the characters move forward in time. This ending tells us what happens to the characters say 5 years later. On the second last page, you were reading that Eva and James were playing in the garden and looked at each other with the most loving and innocent gaze and the next page takes you years ahead in that very garden where the same characters now sit with their children and smile the same smile. This is what a crystal ball story ending looks like. Any fiction genre can fit into this ending, especially sci-fi where time lapses are quite a norm. Even an autobiography can skip long details of so many years in between and reach a conclusion where the author shares the message they want to impart.

Implied/Open-ended Ending

A lot of contemporary literature evades the constraints of craft. Implied or open-ended endings are most common in contemporary literature. Just consider a novella that is written in a ‘stream of consciousness’ manner and you will understand what implied endings are. The author does not state anything clearly. There are only hints, and even those hints are not easy to comprehend. A memoir can also end in this way since the person writing the memoir is still in the process of living life and catching impressions. Such endings are also found in short stories (those written for adults mainly).

Ambiguous/Unresolved Ending

Probably the lesser entertained story ending that the readers will not appreciate much is the ambiguous ending. Here a major part of the story is left unattended leaving the reader with so many questions. The discomfort is very real and a reader will probably not feel good about investing their time through the pages and till the end. A thriller can have such an ending. It can also be found in the general fiction genre too.

Now that you know about the major story endings, we hope it will be fun trying to categorize the ending of each book you read from now on. If you are a writer, this guide will help you see the suitability of a certain type of ending to the story that you are writing.

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