The Final Chapter

I am finally on the final chapter of that book I told you I was starting, which is why I haven’t posted for a long time. The story flowed easily from my subconscious, or wherever, to my finger tips and thence to my hard drive. I had predicted to myself that it would be 70,000 words long, and so far I am at 63k.

With the last chapter that should make 66-67k, and rewriting and editing should push it close to 70k. It’s funny to have a premonition how long a book is going to be before I’ve started to write it, but it happens every time and it has never been wrong.

The Final Chapter is second only in difficulty to write to the first, which is why I’m writing this to you, to give myself time to think how to word how the story will end. I usually start a story with a good idea what the title will be as well, but I’ve changed my mind twice already on this one and I am uncomfortable with that  kind of uncertainty.

I didn’t mean title of the final chapter, I meant the book, but now I’m doubting the title of the final chapter as well. You see, I have given all the chapters in all my books titles, not just numbers, but you have to be careful not to give the plot away in the chapter headings. A potential reader may scan those, think he or she can see the story and not bother to buy it.

The first part of the first chapter has to make the reader want to read more, and so buy the book, hopefully, but the final chapter is the next most important. If the author is planning, or even just hoping, to write a sequel, a cliff-hanger ending may be appropriate, or even just a sense that there could be more to come might be enough, but in this book the main characters die, so there will be no sequel.

So, how do you make the reader feel comfortable enough with the deaths of people they have got to know (and like, again, hopefully) that they don’t feel so upset that they don’t want to read any of your work ever again? That is my problem for today in this final chapter. I hope you read the book to find out whether I succeeded or not one day 🙂

All the best,

Owen

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Podcast: Final Chapter