0-100 Real Quick Tips For Writing: Conflict Resolution & Ending a Story

Ending a story… the tricky part. Where to end and how to end.

Where?

End it when everything is all done and dusted. You want to wrap things up pretty quickly so that there’s not too much air hanging around in the story. Hit the climax, slide down the other side and cut it there… don’t waffle on about what they did a few days afterwards. It waters down the ending.

How?

If you set the story up to have a good climax the ending should write itself. Make sure the characters have all met their goals (the characters that matter!) and it should finish nicely.

Example:

Story about trying to ride a bike- rider is scared to try, watches others try, gets confident, walks up to bike, “nope can’t do it.”, walks away, doesn’t want to quit, walks back to bike, hops on, tries and fails to ride multiple times, finally does it! YAY! – END –

You could end with them getting the hang of it and taking off.

You could end with them pulling up after successfully riding for a few meters.

You could end with them smiling as they pack the bike away after someone else congratulates them on the amazing ride they did.

There’s a few ways to do it but just make sure you wrap it up quickly.

Unfortunately I can’t find any books that have an ending to them because ya’ll are still continuing them BUT (shameless self promotion warning) I do have a number of finished books LOL … check and see how I’ve ended mine, for reference. I will definitely update this chapter when I find a story with a good ending! 😀

Conflict resolution-

Character fights and drama *cue someone going ‘ooooooooh’* 

Verbal fights, physical fights, general tension… all of these make people want to read more because it’s hard to leave in the middle when there’s drama happening.

*certainly not me reading through comment wars between strangers on the Internet* lol 

How to calm your characters down after a conflict.

You can have one just straight up forfeit and apologize profusely and the other forgive them right there and then.

You can have one straight up forfeit and apologize profusely BUT the other party refuses to accept their apology and leaves – this one gives you room for the character that walked away, to have some self reflection eg “they’ve always been so nice to me and I was really mean I should go back and accept their apology then apologize back to them.”

You can have both parties turn away from each other and refuse to speak to one another- but then have some internal dialogue from both parties about why they think the other should apologize until one finally caves.

You can have the argument go around and around until one forgets what they were arguing about in the first place and then they just laugh and shrug it off.

Those are just a few examples ☺️ if in doubt, just Google ‘how to resolve conflict in a book’ and I’m SURE something will come up.

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