New Year's Eve feels like a good time to be thinking about how to end things. As the year draws to a close you start to get some kind of perspective on how it has been and I rather like reading and watching the various media roundups of the highs and lows -- it helps you to take stock.
Being at the cusp of the year like this does illustrate one of the key points of a good ending to a story : it is not just a case of looking back at what has happened, because as one year ends another one, fraught with all kinds of possibilities, beckons. It's the same in fiction. A well tuned narrative should conclude in a way that at some level anticipates the future. This is not just for the purposes of writing a sequel — I’m not that cynical — but it can give your novel ongoing momentum and in a strange way that enhances the reality of the world you and the reader have together created: it can continue without you; somehow, it has an independent existence.
Happy 2011!
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