Remember my advice from the other day?
Be Brisk. Be Brief. Be Gone.
I love endings. I love READING the final lines. Don't even mind writing them, if I hit the nail on the head so to speak.
No cliches, no over-sentimentalizing. :)
I want an ending that makes me sigh.
Brisk, brief, and gone.
For fun (?) today while re-writing an ending, I reached behind me and grabbed the closest stack of books for inspiration.
A sampling from some of my middle-grade novel collection. No titles, thus no spoilers.
(but if you'd like to know a title, leave me a comment and I'll share via the comment section." )
UPDATE: Several of you have asked so here are the titles. Skip this part if you don't want to know!)
1.With a Name Like Love
2. Hound Dog True
3. Touch Blue
4. Penny From Heaven
5. The Liberation of Gabriel King
"Daddy says it's his trademark, but it's not. It's our only salvation."
"I'm Mattie Breen," she says. Her voice is quiet, but no one says Speak up. Everyone can hear.
"I write stories."
My hands on the wheel, my heart near to bursting, I aim the Tess Libby's bow at the horizon.
And gun it.
He'll grin and say, "Best seats in the house."
And they were.
Then maybe they'd figure out what love and courage were all about, and life would spring open like a lock that found its key.
Other places to look at last lines:
http://flavorwire.com/167171/famous-last-words-our-20-favorite-final-lines-in-literature
http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/last77.html
5 comments:
enjoyed this post. Next one up: How about beginnings?
Thanks, Carol!
I also love beginnings. (If you put "beginnings" into my blog's search box, you'll see my musings on the topic.)
But I don't think I've ever actually posted the beginning sentences of kids' books. Thanks for the good idea.
I've done several lessons on beginnings, but NEVER endings. LOVE it! Thank you for sharing this. And, I'd love to know what the titles were. ;-) lara_ivey@ccpsnet.net
returned to this post, Augusta, since I'd linked to it on my writing wiki. Profited from it all over again!
Thanks again, Carol. And I've come to understand and love Richard Peck's idea about BEGINNINGS: You don't know the beginning until you've written the ending. Wow, is that ever true. I usually go back and completely re-write the beginning as one of my very last acts of revision!
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