Writing Tips — The End

At this week’s Story Club, my young writers’ workshop, we looked at endings. What do we expect at the end of a story?

Here is a list we put together:

· Mysteries are solved

· Loose ends are tied up

· There is a feeling of resolution

· There is a drop in tension or no tension

· The main character (protagonist) gets what they want or what they need

· Characters show growth

· The antagonist is defeated

· The end may mirror the beginning

· A possible epilogue

Our writing prompt was as follows:

Kathy has been shipwrecked and finds herself on a small island. She doesn’t know if her brother and parents survived. Over time, she learns to eat seaweed and catch fish. She befriends the birds, talking to them and throwing them a fish from time to time.

I asked the young writers to create an ending to this story.

The endings that came out were beautiful.

In Mine’s story, the sky becomes Kathy’s father, the cove Kathy’s mother, and the waves the low breathing of her brother. She lives out the rest of her days on the island, feeling connected and at one with her family in this way.

In Mika’s story, Kathy builds a raft to leave the island. A ship picks her up and she learns her family has died. However, a bird who knew her from the island throws her a fish. She realises she is connected to the birds, they are family.

In Paikea’s story, Kathy builds a raft to leave the island. However her raft breaks apart in the waves. She is drowning. A flock of birds come lift her up and save her, in thanks for saving a baby bird on the island. Though in this story her biological family has survived, she also has realised her connection to the birds.

We then discussed how in a way it didn’t matter if Kathy’s parents and brother had survived, in the stories. What mattered was that Kathy found family, in the sea and sky, in the birds.