There is great responsibility in a final line of prose. There is also great danger.
Everything written before that single ending line has moved the reader forward (we hope, if the story is well written). It’s at this final line, when there is nowhere else to go except inward to a reader’s reflection, that we ask the reader to stop moving their eyes and continue with their emotions and thoughts.
A too-common temptation comes with this. The writer often feels the need, as with an opening line, to come up with something grand, even earth-shattering. The seduction is to reach for a sentence that somehow explains the meaning of the story or feels important enough to be the last line on the last page. Sometimes, though, in trying to make the ending sound powerful, we sabotage everything that came before. It’s even possible to make that last sentence sound like nothing that has come before.
Where do we find the most effective finale?
My favorite place: character.
Imagine a story about a woman who returns to the house she had shared with her late husband. Early in the story, she cannot bring herself to remove his coffee cup (or something similar). By the end of the story, as we approach that final line, she has made a difficult decision about how she will live without him. That’s tough. You could finish by explaining that she has finally accepted her loss. Or you could show it: “In the morning, she awoke and took his cup and filled it.”
We didn’t explain anything. We let the character do something. Why? Because that’s what people (and characters) do: we act.
This final line, perhaps written more eloquently than my impromptu here, could suggest many things: comfort, acceptance, or, depending on the flavor of the story, something more troubling. The point is that, no matter what we leave the reader with, it is honest, it is an action, and it is left for the reader to ponder. Those are three things this particular ending can accomplish.
The force of this line does not come from the sentence itself. It comes from everything that precedes it, from the meaning this husband’s cup has acquired throughout the story. Without those early pages, the line is no more than a woman waking up in the morning and making a cup of coffee.
You may not discover that final line in the first draft. When you revise your ending, look for something with which the reader is already familiar: an object, a gesture, maybe even a turn of phrase used earlier in the story. Its meaning has now shifted, letting the reader feel the distance traveled from beginning to end.
Before you mark that final draft “final,” read your last paragraph aloud. (I recommend reading the full work aloud, but that’s a lot to ask of many writers.) When you read this final paragraph, try leaving out the last sentence. Did you lose something essential? Or have you found a stronger ending beneath the sentence you worked so hard to make important? Sometimes the next-to-last sentence is your ending, and the sentence after it is merely a comment on what the reader already understands.
We think closing lines should be fireworks. A memorable closing line, however, does not have to announce itself. Think again about what an honest action can leave the reader to reflect upon. Often, the quietest action lets the reader understand how much has changed in the characters and their world.
The final sentence may seem small, but something in the reader should still be smoldering.
