Writing the Happy Ending

For me, the ending of a book is the most challenging. Not the last chapter, but the last 100 pages leading up to the end. It’s the part where you have to raise the stakes, continually increasing the tension until the characters face their worst fears…and must overcome them.

Every time I write a book, I can plan the ending all I want, but it never seems to turn out the way I think it will. These last five chapters are so critical and every scene has to be tight. I’ve been paddling my wheels for a bit now, but am now realizing that unless I outline the last part, I’m just floundering around. Tonight I spent a good bit of time just figuring out how I could possibly make these characters’ lives even worse. Make them suffer….

I’m almost there. There’s a logistical part of the book that’s gnawing at me. I have to move my characters across Ireland to the hero’s home tribe, and the whys and wherefores are a pain. I’ll get there eventually, but it’s such a struggle.

Kindergarten Boy still amuses me. He took his first field trip to an apple orchard and excitedly informed me that his class was going to make apple sauce. I had my doubts about that one, having made apple sauce myself in the past. The next day he proudly explained that while he was at recess, his teacher made applesauce out of the apples they picked in the orchard.

Me: Um, honey, I think she probably had the applesauce already made. (Inwardly, I’m thinking it was probably storebought.)
Him: No, Mom! She made it FOR REAL. She went to the cafeteria and cut up the apples and used their pots and it was ready, just in time for when we got back. It was magic! I swear!

Ah well, who am I to burst his bubble?