Novel Writing Made Less Impossible -- Typing the Best Two Words of the Book

Okay, you've been writing your book, right? RIGHT? Anyway, I hope you're working at it. With any luck, you're nearing the end of your story. So what do you know now?

Back in the day, an episodic television program would wrap up its main story before the last couple of minutes, just prior to the closing credits. Then a trend in television began about fifteen years ago, where the main storyline would conclude 3/4ths of the way through the show, leaving the last quarter for character interaction, showing the results of the previous 45 minutes (less advertising), and setting up plot elements for future episodes.

From my experience, I've seen this on shows such as Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville, Heroes, Once Upon a Time, Supergirl, Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, everything except Doctor Who and American Ninja. It's an effective way of telling the story and giving the audience an opportunity to decompress after all the excitement. When I write a novel, I usually wrap up my main plot by the penultimate chapter. That's when the A Plot (the primary story) is pretty much wrapped up. Then the final chapter are for loose ends. SPOILER WARNINGS ... while you're here, though, you might as well go to www.amazon.com/author/briankmorris and order all my books so you'll know what I'm talking about in the next three paragraphs. For instance, In Bloodshot: The Coldest Warrior, the earlier version of Bloodshot was destroyed, as was the computer that powered it, and the One-Man WMD rescued his companion. The final chapter revolved around the only other escapee from the previous chapter setting up a potential sequel while our title character got far away and came to terms with what he'd learned about himself.

In Vulcana: The Coldest Warrior, Angelique Forge, after dealing with the earthly allies of The Olders in the previous chapter, goes to lunch with Kim Perry, contacts Vulcan, gets a new place to live, and wraps up this episode, while leaving some plot threads dangling for the next book.

And The Original Skyman Battles the Master of Steam's REAL last chapter showed us the Steam Master's ultimate fate. Ignoring that -- and that afterward was more of an afterthought, really, created in a mischievous moment -- the last two chapters detailed how the Turners were reunited, how the Skyman set up his base of operations, and teased Fawn Carroll starting her own detective agency, just as in the comics.

So use that last chapter to bring your major and minor plotlines to a satisfying resolution. You don't have to give everyone a happy ending ... but personally, I think tragedy is too easy an out for a writer. It's much simpler to kill a character than to save one.

But once you've covered all your story lines, given everyone a good send-off, then you get to type the most satisfying two words in the English language ... THE END! Congratulations. You are now a novelist. But you're not done yet ...

NEXT WEEK: Once You Finish, You Only THINK You're Done ...

SPECIAL NOTE: My newest book, The Haunting Scripts of Bachelors Grove, will be out on Friday, February 2nd, 2018. It's part memoir, part grimoire. The first half deals with my entry into writing indie comics and joining Silver Phoenix Entertainment. I print four of my comic scripts for The Haunting Tales of Bachelors Grove, three of which have not been produced yet. Then I add four horror prose tales, three of which are NEW. All this behind a great cover by my Art Sherpa, Trevor Erick Hawkins, over 300 pages of terror and history for only $19.95.

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