Clinching the ending.

I want to bring resonance to the ending of a book. To fulfill reader's expectations or even exceed them. To bring the themes to a conclusion. I want the character arcs completed in a satisfying way.  The plot needs to be tied up.

The ending is what the reader will walk away with, what he or she will remember. If I can create a good feeling at the end, then that's the reward.

Anyway, I've liked the ending to Blood of the Succubus, but last night I wrote a ending line that had me raise both fists in the air and shout "Yes!"

It requires that I go back an add something earlier in the book. I'd thought about doing this scene already, but it wasn't totally, absolutely necessary, so I was still mulling it over.

This one final line clinched the deal. So today I write that scene and then tie it together with the ending line and it should have a nice completed feel to it.


NEXT DAY: Today I went through the writer's group critiques -- (a couple of reams worth of paper).

So the completed book is now 93K words, or about 9K bigger than I handed off to Lara, and 35K longer than the first finished version.

It's scary how much better it is. Because I thought that first version was good. Which makes me wonder about everything I'm doing...

The only thing left to do is go through the 9K red-colored changes and make sure they are copy-edited since Lara won't be seeing them.


It's a real book.  It has heft.  It feels substantial and layered.

But because it was such a heavy rewrite, it's pretty hard for me to judge. I just have to assume that the improvements really are improvements, each and every one.