WritersDigest.com I 59Bs & s
everything that Julia said. Jackson suddenly regretted
not buying the two-seater BMW Z8 instead—then they
could have put Amelia in the boot.Contrast that with the Jackson Brodie from the begin-
ning, who was struggling to quit smoking, dealing with
car and work troubles, and fi ghting with his ex-wife:
Jackson switched on the radio and listened to the reas-
suring voice of Jenni Murray on Woman’s Hour. He lit
a new cigarette from the stub of the old one because
he had run out of matches, and faced with a choice
between chain-smoking or abstinence, he’d taken the
former option because it felt like there was enough
abstinence in his life already. If he got the cigarette
lighter on the dashboard fi xed he wouldn’t have to
smoke his way through the packet, but there were a lot
of other things that needed fi xing on the car and the
cigarette lighter wasn’t high on the list. Jackson drove
a black Alfa Romeo 156 that he’d bought secondhand
four years ago for £13,000 and that was now probably
worth less than the Emmelle Freedom mountain bike he
had just given his daughter for her eighth birthday (on
the proviso that she didn’t cycle on the road until she
was at least forty).In both scenes he’s driving and listening to the radio,
yet the feeling of the opening scene is tense and cranky,
while the fi nal scene is relaxed and free. In the fi nal scene,
he’s driving a new BMW, not a lemon of an Alfa Romeo.
He’s not worrying about his ex-wife or his daughter and
now he’s got the prospect of a new relationship.
Counterpointing your fi rst scene with your fi nal
scene provides a sense of closure and change to your
narrative. Look at your fi rst scene and see how you can
set up a similar one using setting and other details, while
changing the tone, pace, and interior monologue to show
that your protagonist is in a diff erent place from where
he started.
Refl ective Exposition
Since the fi nal scene is a time for refl ection, interior
monologue and exposition can be a natural fi t here.
By the end of Janet Fitch’s Paint It Black, Josie Tyrell
has fi nally gotten a glimpse into the life and mind of her
boyfriend, Michael, who committed suicide at the start
of the book. Now she’s left to pick up the pieces of her
life and carry on:
Josie sat on the bed in number 4, smoking a ciggie. The
sunlight shone bright and cold through the open door.
She knew it was time to leave. There was nothing else to
do but pack up and head home. And yet, how could she
leave this place where he’d made his end? She sat up
against the rickety headboard and picked cholla spines
out of the bedspread, fl icking them into the ashtray.
Maybe she should take up knitting. Something quiet and
productive. She didn’t want to go back home, back to
the empty house, as if Michael had fallen through a hole
in the ice and just disappeared. But she couldn’t drag his
raw death through her days like this, like a giant bleed-
ing moose head.
By opening the fi nale with interior monologue, you can
drop the reader directly into the mood, emotion, or the-
matic state you want him to be in. Final scenes should
not be long. Interior monologue and exposition allow
you to quickly set the stage for redemption, forgiveness,
acceptance, or any of the common themes of literature.THE PACE OF A FINAL SCENE
Your fi nal scene does not need to have the same dramatic
structure as the rest. It is the place to let your protagonist
rest and refl ect, and for you to convey a feeling, image,
or theme to the reader. Th erefore, the pace tends to be
slower. Actions are small, with attention to details that
convey your character’s inner life and attitudes, hopes,
and feelings.
Louise Erdrich uses setting details to bring her pace
down in the fi nal scene of her novel Th e Painted Drum.
Faye Travers, whose sister died young, has just been
through an intense relationship with a local sculptor
whose teenage daughter was killed. Th e novel has spent a
lot of time focusing on the loss of children and on deal-
ing with grief—and Faye had pushed much of her own
grief away. By the end, however, her experiences have
soft ened her, and she’s ready to face things as they are. In
the fi nal scene she goes to visit her sister’s grave:
My sister’s stone marker is very distinctive. It’s a carved
angel that our mother bought from a church about to be
demolished and had engraved with the date and name.
Perhaps because the angel was not meant as a memo-
rial in the fi rst place, there is something stealthily alive
about her—wings that fl are instead of droop, an alert
and outwardly directed expression, a hand clutched to