Chris Eboch on Wrapping up a Story with Bookends

A story can be circular.

Strong stories have a distinct beginning (introducing the main character and problem), middle (where the character tries to solve the problem), and end (where the character succeeds or fails, and possibly learns a lesson).

A story can feel especially satisfying if the end clearly echoes the beginning. Perhaps a character has gone on a journey, and at the end he returns home. Maybe she starts by struggling with some physical task, like hitting a baseball, and at the end she succeeds. Or he’s resisting a change, such as a new sibling, and the story ends with them connecting.

When the final setting or situation is similar to the opening, creating “bookends” to the middle, the pattern feels satisfying. It also ensures that the story is tied together and hasn’t wandered off on tangents.

Carolyn Meyer often uses a prologue and epilogue as bookends for her historical fiction. Cleopatra Confesses (Simon & Schuster) includes a prologue where Cleopatra hears that her enemy, Octavian, is at the gates of Alexandria. The body of the novel shows her remembering her life as she waits. In the Epilogue, Octavian has arrived, demanding her surrender.

An Echo, Not a Copy

While the ending echoes the beginning, it shouldn’t duplicate it. With a few exceptions, a story requires change. Quite likely, a problem has been solved. Hopefully, the main character has grown. The traveler returns with a new appreciation for his home. The girl who thought hitting a baseball was impossible is satisfied with her progress. The boy who wanted nothing to do with the new baby appreciates the advantage of having a sibling. They haven’t just solved the problem; they’ve changed how they feel about the situation.

Bookend scenes may illustrate the changes by using a scene or language similar to, but slightly different from, the opening. If you open with a girl trying to hit a baseball, close with her back at the same park, swinging at a baseball again. Try making the circumstances as similar as possible, with the same weather and other characters present.

The bookend format doesn’t work if you end at a different point, such as with the character at home telling her parents what happened, even if the problem was solved in the same way. You want the echo of a similar scene. This can help you figure out where to end, so you don’t stop too early or drag on too long.

You can also experiment with using similar language, with small shifts to show what’s changed. In the opening scene of Uma Krishnaswami’s The Grand Plan to Fix Everything (Atheneum), the narrative reads, “Two happy sighs float off the couch....” Of course, something quickly intrudes on this happiness. But after a madcap adventure, the narrative concludes, “There are many kinds of sighs. The one Dini sighs now is wrapped in contentment.”

Nonfiction and Art Bookends

Bookends can work with all kinds of writing, including nonfiction. In Jennifer McKerley’s early reader Amazing Armadillos (Random House), the book begins and ends at the same point in the yearly cycle of the armadillo’s life, but with a twist. The beginning features an adult armadillo, while the end shows her pups in the same situation.

Shirley Raye Redmond’s Pup’s Prairie Home (Picture Window Books) starts with the lines, “Pup and his mom lived in a prairie dog town. Their home was a deep dark hole in the ground.” Although his mother insists this is the best place for him, Pup wants a more exciting home. He changes his mind after a close call with a hawk and ends by saying, “A deep, dark hole is the best home for a prairie dog pup like me.”

Illustrators can use bookends as well. In Robin Koontz’s wordless picture book Dinosaur Dream (Putnam Juvenile), the story begins and ends with the child sleeping in bed, framing the dream adventure with dinosaurs.

Using bookend scenes is one form of showing rather than telling. The reader can see how things have changed, and whether or not the change has satisfied the main character. This typically suggests the theme, so you don’t need to explicitly point out the lesson learned.

Bookends aren’t necessary for every story, but by thinking about bookends, you may find a natural ending point for your story. Don’t end too early, before you’ve had a chance to echo the beginning. And don’t go on too long, traveling past the natural bookend. With bookends, you can illustrate the change in the character or situation subtly but clearly, while using a repetition pattern that’s especially appealing to children.

Chris Eboch is the author of over 40 books for children, including nonfiction and fiction, early reader through teen. Her novels for ages nine and up include The Eyes of Pharaoh, a mystery in ancient Egypt; The Well of Sacrifice, a Mayan adventure; The Genie’s Gift, a middle eastern fantasy; and the Haunted series, about kids who travel with a ghost hunter TV show, which starts with The Ghost on the Stairs. 

Chris's writing craft books include You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers, and Advanced Plotting.

Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page, or check out her writing tips at her Write Like a Pro! blog.

St Paddy’s Snake Bite Remedy by Eden Unger Bowditch

As today we think everything should be green as the grass is green. Why? And for whom? For none other than St Patrick. Many green-wearing fans think of him as the little buckle-shoed ginger leprechaun with pointy ears and a twinkle in his eye. Sorry folks. That’s not the story.

When we were young, my husband and I were in a band that toured and made albums and did it all with a baby in tow (he took two years off grad school!) One of our songs was inspired by a comment by a friend in the music business. He said, ‘This song reminds me of St Paddy’s Snake Bite Remedy’ and, thus, it was dubbed.

What feels like a hundred years later, I look back and wonder why I never investigated the story. Me? A lover of stories? A teller of stories? And, so, I shall do so today.

St Paddy was not Irish and, in fact, wasn’t even Christian. He never planned to go to Ireland. He was a wealthy young boy in Britain and was kidnapped. St Paddy’s move from the lap of luxury to tending sheep on a rainy Irish hillside was not by choice. But, as he sat shivering while tending his flock, he had a conversion. He heard a voice that told him what must happen. He returned to Britain, became a priest, then went back to Ireland where he lived out his days trying to bring Christianity to the natives. But what about snakes?

Well, the story goes that St. Paddy snake bite remedy was to banish snakes from the island. And, as it stands, there are no snakes in Ireland. Were there ever snakes in Ireland, you ask? Why do you want to trample upon a fabulous tale that has survived the centuries?

We are spinners of stories ourselves, are we not? And we all love a good yarn. Let’s enjoy the magic brought to us on this day. We celebrate in big or small ways- a green scarf or green socks, or bright green-died hair, pick your pleasure- let’s send a cheer to Ireland as we remember the passing of Irish patron and give a nod to St. Paddy’s snake bite remedy.

Chris Eboch on Writing Great Endings

[This post is adapted from a chapter in You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers]

If you’re a writer or a reader (or both), you probably know about story climaxes. The climax is the most intense point of the story. It’s an exciting, dramatic challenge, where the main character must finally succeed in her goal, or fail with terrible results. You want the climax to be the most dramatic part of the story, so the reader walks away satisfied.

But first let’s look at the moment right before the climax. My brother, script writer Doug Eboch, points out that movie plots have a moment of apparent failure (or success). However the movie ends, “There needs to be a moment where the opposite appears to be inevitable. So if your character succeeds at the end, you need a moment where it appears the character will fail. And if your character fails at the end, you need a moment where they appear to succeed.” (Doug’s full essay is in my writing craft book, Advanced Plotting.)

Setting up Failure

I wondered whether Doug’s point held equally true for novels. Looking through a few of the books on my shelf, certainly the climax includes a crisis point where the reader may believe that everything is going wrong and the main character could fail.

In my paranormal adventure The Ghost on the Stairs, Tania is possessed by a ghost and her brother Jon isn’t sure if he’ll be able to save her.

In my historical drama The Well of Sacrifice, Eveningstar is thrown into the sacrificial well, a watery pit surrounded by high cliffs, and realizes no one will rescue her.

In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, the lion Aslan is killed and the good army is losing their battle.

In Eden Unger Bowditch’s first Young Inventors Guild book, The Atomic Weight of Secrets or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black, Faye tries to escape the clutches of the mysterious men in black when her parents seem to have completely abandoned her. She jumps from the car and runs but is quickly grabbed and brought back to be taken and deposited bodily, on the ground, outside the farmhouse. How can she possibly escape now, when the men are watching her closely?

In mystery or suspense novels, this may be the point where the bad guy has captured the hero or is threatening to kill him. In a romance, this is the point where the couple is farthest apart and we wonder how they’ll ever resolve their differences to live happily ever after.

Does your story or novel have a crisis point, a moment at the climax where readers truly believe the main character could fail? If not, you may want to rethink your plot or rewrite the action to make the climax more intense and challenging. The happy ending is only satisfying if it is won at great expense through hard work. In literature as in real life, people don’t always value what comes easily. Success feels that much sweeter when it can be contrasted to the suffering we’ve had to endure.

The Climax

Finally, at the climax, the main character must succeed or fail. You’ve built to this point with your complications. Now time is running out. The race is near the end. The girl is about to date another guy. The villain is starting the battle. It’s now or never.

However you get there, the climax will be strongest if it is truly the last chance. You lose tension if the reader believes the main character could fail this time, and simply try again tomorrow.

In The Well of Sacrifice, the high priest throws Eveningstar off a cliff into a sacrificial pool. If she can survive and get back to the main temple in secret, she can confront the high priest with new status as a messenger from the gods. But the penalty for failure is death, the highest stake of all.

In Dianne K. Salerni’s middle grade fantasy adventure, The Eighth Day, Jax has failed to protect his liege lady from being used in an evil ritual to destroy seven days of the week. The person he hoped would save them both, his guardian, has just been delivered bound and gagged for use as a human sacrifice by somebody Jax thought was on their side. Jax has one last, desperate idea, but his hands are tied behind his back and he can’t implement it.

Movies are well-known for this “down to the wire” suspense, regardless of genre. In Star Wars, Luke blows up the Death Star during the final countdown as the Death Star prepares to destroy a planet. In Back to the Future, Marty must get his parents together before the future changes irretrievably and he disappears. He’s actually fading when his parents finally kiss. In the romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama, Melanie decides whom she really loves as she’s walking down the aisle to marry the wrong man. The technique works just as well for books and stories, and you’ll get the most suspense if the stakes are high.

Tips:

Don’t rush the climax. Take the time to write the scene out in vivid detail, even if the action is happening fast. Think of how movies switch to slow motion or use multiple shots of the same explosion, in order to give maximum impact to the climax.

To make the climax feel fast-paced, use mainly short sentences and short paragraphs. The reader’s eyes move more quickly down the page, giving a sense of breathless speed.

Exercises:

Study some of your favorite books. Is there a “ticking clock,” where the characters have one last chance to succeed before time runs out? If not, how would it change the book to add one?

Now look at your work in progress, or a completed manuscript draft or outline. Do your characters have a time deadline? Do you wait until the last possible moment to allow them to succeed? If not, can you add tension to the story by finding a way to have time running out?

You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers is available for the Kindle, in paperback, or in Large Print paperback.

Hot Tip: When you buy a paperback (or if you purchased one in the past), the Kindle eBook should automatically be set to $0.00. Even if you do not have a Kindle, you can get a free Kindle app for your computer. You Can Write for Children lists many websites and blogs among the resources; with the e-book version, you can click to go directly to the sites. So pick up your paperback copy for easy reading and markup, and get a free Kindle copy for quick clicking!

Outlining: write with the end in mind

Write with the end in mind. That advice has been around for a pretty long time, I think, but it seems to me that in the writers' blogosphere, pantsers (a.k.a. people who don't outline) run amok, for various reasons: it's liberating to write without an outline; if you don't know where your plot's going, then neither will your readers be able to predict the plot. (Honestly, I'm not quire sure of the reasons. As you might've guessed, I'm not a pantser.)

But there's a reason, I believe, why "write with the end in mind" is valid advice. Every story needs a plot arc. If you know where your plot arc ends, you'll always have an end goal towards which you can work. It also saves you from wandering through your middle in one direction, only to realize that your story actually ends up over there -- and thereby rendering your first 10,000 words useless.

As an outliner, I like to go beyond figuring out the ending; I usually summarize the general events of my middle, too, so I always have a general idea of the scene I should be writing. But as long as you know where and how to bring your story to a close, I think you can go ahead and pants your way through the middle.

Do you follow this advice? Why or why not?

-Yahong