ENDINGS

Aims:
 To consider what makes a good ending.
 To learn what cliché endings are and how
to avoid them.
 Endings
Q. What makes a good ending?

Task 1:
In pairs look at the three endings you have
been given. They are possible endings for
a story called The Heroes.
Put the endings in the order of best to worse
and talk about why you think they should
go in that order.
Task 2:
Put these statements on what is essential for a
good ending in order of importance….
1.The ending ought to refer back to the beginning
in some way
2. Everything should be sorted out in the ending
3. The ending should be exciting
4. There should be a twist – something
unexpected should happen
5. The ending should ‘hang’ – we should be left to
work it all out for ourselves
6. The ending should be a ‘cliff-hanger’; it should
feel like the beginning of a new story
Ending of Night of the Stick Insects by Alan Durant

By the dark, dark early hours of the morning, Tommy’s

room was thick with stick insects, grown to a gigantic
size – some the size of Alsatian dogs. In the blackness
they hissed and clicked, as if in angry conversation,
discussing what to do. It was to this that Tommy awoke
…
His first thought was that he was having another nightmare.
And even when they lifted him from his bed with their
sturdy, tree-trunk limbs, he could not believe it was real,
that this was actually happening. It was only when they
lifted him towards the huge, open, slimy, tooth-filled
mouth of the now monstrous gecko that he understood
the full, real horror of the situation. And by then he was
half inside and it was too late.
 Cliché Endings
Q. What are Cliché endings???
Examples:
• that he understood the full, real horror
of the situation. At that point he
awoke and it had all been just a
dream.
• With that they all lived happily ever
after.