you’re anything like me, you’ll know that a bad ending to a book, film, or TV show is not just disappointing, but potentially ruinous to the story. Look no further than cultural phenomena like Game of Thrones and How I Met Your Mother for entire fanbases that have denounced shows they formerly loved—all because of poorly executed endings.
And not to put the pressure on all you short fiction writers out there, but I’d argue that “sticking the ending” with a short story is even more important than with other, longer mediums. Why? Because when you have so little space to make an impression, every single paragraph counts—and when the ending falls short in such a brief piece, it can feel like there was little point in reading the story at all.
Through my own experience writing and reading short stories (the latter as a longtime judge for Reedsy’s weekly short story contest!), I’ve come to a much better understanding of what makes for a satisfying ending vs. not. I still won’t claim that I find it easy to land on the perfect ending for a story, but here are a few common strategies that seem to work well!
1. Find the “natural” outcome
Many writers have spoken about how, once they’ve developed their characters and set their plot in motion, they let the characters “lead the way.” This tactic seems particularly popular among novelists, which makes sense; characters in novels tend to be more fleshed out than in short stories, making it a bit easier to figure out what they’d do next.
We can apply a similar logic to short story writing, even if your characters haven’t been developed quite as extensively. One nice thing about short stories is that they usually have small casts, so you can think pretty deeply about what their true motivations are, and how those motivations would come to light over the course of your story.
Homing in on these questions—“what does each character want, and how might that manifest?”—should help you find a narrative trajectory that ends in an organic place. That doesn’t mean your story must be predictable; there may be certain elements of your characters’ personalities or circumstances that only come to light at the very end, or only become clear in retrospect. But whatever you do, readers should never reach the final line of your story and feel completely bewildered! Find the natural outcome, and you’ll hopefully avoid this fate.
2. Circle back to the beginning
Another great way to end your story is with a callback of some kind—ideally something that circles all the way back to its beginning. There are countless ways to do this: repeating a given phrase, harking back to an initial motif, having a character do something they did earlier, etc.
What’s great about this method is that it can also be used to convey many different things, in many different types of stories. For example, in the short story “When I Read Beckett” (a recent winner of our Reedsy contest), the stream-of-consciousness style creates a tense, gripping story... and repeats the same phrase in the first and last lines, forming a sort of narrative “loop.” This underscores the persistence of the central character’s trauma—it repeats in her mind over and over, no matter how much she’d like to forget. While certainly upsetting (heed the trigger warning if you read this story!), it also makes for a very effective ending.
But the “circle back” technique can be used in totally different ways in other stories. Another piece that comes to mind is Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Unaccustomed Earth,” one of my all-time favorites. In this story, a woman’s aging father comes to visit; in the first few paragraphs of the story, we learn that he travels extensively, sending postcards from wherever he is. I won’t spoil the ending here for those who haven’t read it, but suffice to say, a postcard plays a pivotal role—and provides a satisfying conclusion to a tale of complex family dynamics and expectations.
3. Try out an ambiguous ending
This one has perhaps been overdone in recent years, but when done well, it’s still one of my favorite types of endings. As with “circular” endings, there’s a vast spectrum of techniques here: you can have such a drastically ambiguous ending that it could be called a “cliffhanger” (à la Inception), or you can simply raise a number of paths and not force your characters down any of them, instead leaving them to mull over the possibilities.
I tend to prefer the latter approach to the “ambiguous” ending, particularly in a short story. One standout I’ve read recently is the ending to “Hearts Are Trump,” another Reedsy contest winner. In this story, a family plays cards while discussing (or rather, refusing to discuss) their mother’s declining health. They don’t come to any resolution, but the ambiguity that hangs in the air—especially after the final line—is a poignant reminder that sometimes, there is no easy answer.
An ambiguous ending can be tough to pull off, and some readers don’t like them; indeed, before I started writing myself, I rarely appreciated the artistry of ambiguity, instead preferring definitive “closure.” But if you feel reluctant to pin down the finale of your own short story, that could be a sign that an ambiguous ending is right for it. (For even more study material, I’d recommend Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends and Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, both of which make excellent use of ambiguous endings in their own way.)
4. End with a different character’s perspective
Something else that works well in short stories is to end with a different character’s perspective—that is, a new insight from a secondary or otherwise elusive character. I previously mentioned that it may be useful to obscure certain details until the end of a story; when you’re ready to reveal them, an unexpected character may be the perfect avenue.
Another couple of great examples here: “Dear Aunt Beth” from the Reedsy short story contest, and “A for Alone” by Curtis Sittenfeld (another longtime favorite of mine!). In the former, we follow Hanna—who grows up over the course of the story—as she writes a series of thank-you notes to her Aunt Beth. After a falling-out, we’re subjected to a few heartbreaking emails which Hanna can’t bring herself to send... but when Aunt Beth finally replies at the end of the story, we’re filled with joy and hope that their relationship can be repaired.
“A for Alone” takes a different tack: rather than bringing in an important central character to speak for themselves, the story ends with an almost tertiary character challenging the main character’s beliefs. Again, no spoilers for those who haven’t read it—it’s that good!—but this is essentially a story in which the main character contemplates one set of values vs. another, in an extreme binary... only for this tertiary character to suggest that something else entirely could be true.
Neither of these story’s endings relies on a twist, per se, but each new perspective definitely prompts the reader to reflect. And while the main thrust of a short story should aim to engage and entertain, I’d argue that a story’s ending should make readers reflect—on the story itself, their own lives and experiences, and the interplay between these.
5. Keep the climactic scene short
My final piece of advice is perhaps the only thing I’d recommend to all short fiction writers: as you approach your story’s ending, keep the climactic or final scene as short as possible.
It might sound obvious—after all, it’s not a novel, and you only have so much space!—but a surprising number of entrants in our contest fail to do this. Instead, they go on and on and on with the ending, seemingly in pursuit of narrative drama. But the sheer number of words actually causes the story to lose momentum—and the reader to lose interest.
To avoid this, I’d suggest simply keeping your “third act” as short as possible, cutting mercilessly if needed. Don’t spend 1,000 words describing the logistics of your character’s escape once they’ve gotten away from the bad guy, or keep musing for paragraphs after you’ve already raised the key revelation of your story. Say what you came to say, drop the mic, and get out.
In the spirit of taking my own advice, I won’t keep rambling on at the end of this article. The very last thing I’d say is that none of these short story strategies are mutually exclusive! The first and last pieces of advice are the most widely applicable, while the others are more about how you choose to present your short story’s ending—but they can certainly be mixed and matched, evaluated for their different advantages, and used to your liking. And I do hope this helps you find exactly the right ending for your own short story... because there’s nothing better than typing that final line, smiling, and thinking to yourself: Yes. That’s the one.
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Savannah Cordova is a writer with Reedsy, a publishing platform that connects authors with editors, designers, and marketers to help them publish a book. Savannah has also written for Kirkus, BookTrib, and Litreactor and has been published in the Own Canyon Press anthology, No Bars and a Dead Battery. Her non-writing interests include cooking, watching rom-coms, and visiting various art museums around London, where she is currently based.
