Five Authors / Five Questions: The End

Last week Shimmer magazine posted the fifth question on their blog. This time we talked about endings.

5. How do you craft the perfect ending for a story? How do you keep an ending from falling flat?

I didn’t say this, but thought it was pretty spot on: “I’m always a fan of stories that leave the reader in the mystery, in the wonder. Which means risking not explaining everything, thus (hopefully) leaving the reader the space to make it perfect.”

Use these links to catch up with the whole series:

4. How do you decide whose story is being told? Do you have a favorite POV to work in?

3. How do you keep a story from slumping in the middle?

2. How do you go about choosing a title for the story? Do titles present themselves before the work begins, or when it’s complete?

1. How do you begin a story? Does it start with the idea, a character, an image, a line of dialogue, or are all stories different?

Thanks again to everyone at Shimmer. It was great fun being part of the series. (I’ll spare the Internets the dollop of self-denigrating out pouring… but, yeah, thanks!) Also it was great fun reading the answers from my co-interviewees: Luc Reid,  Krista Hoeppner Leahy, Don Mead, and Vylar Kaftan.