On Writing Romance_ How to Craft a Novel That Sells - Leigh Michaels [125]
• The fate ending. Fate or angels or the gods step in to solve the problem. Miracle cures of supposedly terminal illnesses fit in this category, as do villains who are conveniently killed in car accidents rather than being forced by the hero and heroine to face the consequences of their actions. The conclusion should come about as a direct result of the main characters' actions.
Endings That Work
All satisfactory endings have something in common—they grow naturally out of elements that are already present in the story; they don't introduce new ideas or go off in new directions. For instance:
• The circular ending. This ending reveals a character's growth and development by exposing him anew to a situation or activity that occurred at the story's beginning and showing the difference in the character's reaction. For example, at the beginning of the story, the heroine walks down Chicago's Magnificent Mile, enjoying the city's bustle and noise. At the end, she takes the same walk, but because of the way she has changed over the course of the story, she now finds the bustle overwhelming and the noise intrusive.
• The building-on-a-theme ending. It can be very effective to drop a comment, question, or reference into the story at irregular intervals and then allow that same theme to form the ending. In Elizabeth Bevarly's single title You've Got Male, her hero is a spy who has used multiple names but who refuses to utter his code name; he has even threatened the co-workers who know it, to keep them from actually using it:
"I love you, Dixon. I love you, Oliver. I love you no matter who you are or what you are or where you are. And I will love you forever."
He lifted a hand to her face, cupping her jaw gently in his palm. "Binky," he said. She narrowed her eyes at him.
"That's my code name," he told her, smiling. "Binky."
She chuckled. "Hence the reason why no one lives to talk about it after saying it." "You could say it and live," he promised.
She lifted her hand to his face, too, brushing her fingertips over his rough beard. "Nah, I kind of like you as Dixon," she said. She smiled. "But who knows what I might call out in a moment of heated passion."
He quirked up one dark brow. "We could find out." She nodded slowly. "Yes, we could."
And in a moment of heated passion—several moments of heated passion, in fact—they did.
Since the hero's code name has been such a big thing through the story, referred to a half-dozen times, his sharing it with the heroine is a unique expression of trust. The readers are reassured about the couple's future, because if he'll tell her that embarrassing bit of information, there will be no important things kept secret.
• The unanticipated ending. This ending offers a solution the readers don't see coming. If the readers can guess the compromise, the emotional appeal of the ending is minimized, and the readers are likely to think the characters should have figured this out long ago. But the effective surprise ending isn't really a surprise when the readers stop to think about it—it's simply an unexpected twist on a theme that was already present in the story.
THE LAST LINE
The very end of the book—the last couple of paragraphs—is the place where even the most disciplined of writers is apt to slide into sloppy purple prose. Just as it's easy to start a story too early, it's also tempting to go on too long in the end. That perfect last line isn't easy to find—and in romances, authors have a tendency to get more sentimental, cloying, and sickly sweet with each sentence.
The last few lines