Endings

Clearly the ending of a book/story is super important. When it comes down to it, the last words on the final page will give the reader their ultimate judgment of the story. I've read endings that were bland and chalky in flavor, endings that tried to put a crazy, unnecessary spin on things, and fluff endings that are nice in their own way but don't offer any actual substance. These three types are typical of the books I've read. The entire rest of the series before the end is usually good, (otherwise I wouldn't have bothered with it), but the end just ruins it for me. However, every once in a blue moon, an ending to a book ruins a series for me in an entirely different way. When an ending makes you upset, just for the simple fact that it is 'The End", you know you've truly fallen in love with a book.

For example, a few months ago I read the final 70 pages of the sixth and last "Adventures of Tiger and Del" series. The reason I put it like that is because I had actually read the other novels in the series two years before. It took me two whole years to work up the courage to just read that ending. I knew it was one of the best series I'd come across and that meant the ending had to be perfect. It's a older work, from the 80's if my memory serves me, so it's clear that there will be no other book relating to those two particular characters. After those 70 pages there would be no more Tiger, with his manly-man attitude, and no Del, with her forceful determination. But then- after I'd finally ripped that band aide off and finished the book- I sat back against my headboard and smiled. There was nothing else I could do. The ending was- in every way that I could have dreamed it- perfect. And though I'd never be able to follow on another adventure of theirs again I was content. 

Endings, to me, are the portion of the book that should be perfected most, over and over, throughout the entire writing process. The final sentence is the author's last chance to give the reader a glimpse into their world before they shut that door and bar it from view.