The Exquisite Burden of a Good Ending

Endings are hard. Good endings even harder. We’ve all read last lines of books that make us gasp in recognition or satisfaction or surprise. What does a writer need to do in order to really stick the landing—or the ending—of a story? Great endings require us to both carry forward all the preceding events while simultaneously deepening the meaning of those events, allowing the reader to see the story anew. In this workshop, we’ll look at a number of flash fiction stories to figure out what distinguishes a “blah” ending from a “wow” ending, and how we can apply that to our own work. All participants will leave with a suggested reading list of great endings in contemporary fiction.