I just completed the book The Pleasure of My Company a book about a highly neurotic man on a quest to normalcy. I picked up this book because it was not only written but read by Steve Martin [yes, THAT Steve Martin], so if the writing was bad the reading would be amusing.

                I was captured by the humor and the incredible characterization in this story. As with every book I searched for ways to improve my own writing during the process of reading.

                This book had one of the best endings of any book I’ve read in a very long time. I would put it among the top 5 endings of ANY book. It was the type that cannot be shared because it would spoil the entire the book. It ended when the story ended rather than jamming in needless [and useless] words just to hit an artificial word count. The ending was incredibly satisfying and logical. There were no cheap theatrics, it simply was.

                The ending always sells your next book and this story absolutely sold the next book to me.

                Here at Writing Career Coach I spend a good bit of time telling you ways to market your writing. I interview authors to introduce you to different ways of marketing your writing and looking at your career. None of that matters if you don’t deliver.

                So here is today’s assignment, what is your ending? Where are you going? How is your main character going to grow and develop over the course of your story? Why is someone going to invest hours of their time to live the life of your characters?

                How are you going to end? Tell us some of your ideas in the comments.

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Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com

Tiffany is a speaker and teacher. Find out about available topics for your group’s next event.

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Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.

Common-sense money management is free at The Balanced Life website.

Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog.

She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer’s Rest.

Here is an exercise to help you with your craft today. In the comments write the following scene but within your genre. Let the tone, description and pace of this small scene be guided by the time period, mood of the scene, genre of the book, etc.

A man and woman are walking outside. Both are hungry.

How much tension can you make of this prompt? How many problems could you realistically throw at them? Will it even matter at the end of the scene that they were hungry or is that just what brought them to the place of conflict? Or will a new secret be revealed over dinner.

Be creative and tell us the genre and time period you’re writing in. Have fun with it. I cannot wait to read what you write.

To try other writing exercises follow these links:

The First 3 pages: Part 1

The First 3 pages: Part 2

The First 3 pages: Part 3

 The first 3 pages: Part 4

The first 3 pages: Part 5