Famous Last Words

Revisions on Anna Mei are due this week. I’m down to the last few sections that need tweaking, including beefing up the role of a minor character that could appear in a possible sequel. She’s like the bit player waiting in the wings and hoping a bigger part comes along next time. Good luck, Zandra—I hope it works out for you!

The task that’s weighing heaviest is
coming up with an additional sentence or two for the ending. The final setting is the night before Thanksgiving, and I used a quote about gratitude to end it. While the editor likes the quote, she wants an ending in Anna Mei’s words, to make it more personal. And the thing is, she’s absolutely right.

I think I’ve always struggled with figuring out the exact words that will wrap up a story in a perfect bow. In college I liked to end my term papers with scholarly quotes, which worked like a charm until I ran up against Dr. Robert Weisbuch, head of the English Department at the University of Michigan. “Overall it’s quite good,” he wrote at the bottom of my first paper for his class. “Your research holds up and your points are well thought out. But it’s weak to end with someone else’s words.” Busted!

A few years ago I was submitting a short story called “Peter Keeps Cool” to children’s magazines. Paula Morrow, an editor at Carus Publishing, actually took the time to write a personal note on the rejection form. She said that she had really enjoyed the story—it was lively and whimsical, and perfectly captured the loving relationship between a mother and her young son. But she thought the ending fell flat, that it didn’t measure up to the playful atmosphere I’d built up in the story. She invited me to rework the ending and submit it again.

It was a generous offer, and I wasn’t about to let it slip away. Besides, I could see exactly what she meant. I came up with a modified ending that maintained the playful tone of the story, and sent it back—along with a thank you note—to Paula. Not only was “Peter” published in Ladybug Magazine, it has been resold to two different testing companies. So far I’ve made more income from that little story than anything else I’ve ever written!

Coming up with the perfect ending is no small feat. For inspiration (sometimes spelled “procrastination”), I came up with a list of some of my favorite last lines. I think you’ll recognize most of them, but just to make it a little more interesting, I put the book titles at the bottom.

1. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.

2. Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.

3. So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

4. After all, tomorrow is another day.

5. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.

6. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

7. Thank you, thank you, Sam I am.

8. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

9. Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye and sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room, where he found his supper waiting for him, and it was still hot.

10. Well, I’m back.

Aren’t they great? They illuminate what came before and make you wish the story could go on forever. Here are the gifted authors who wrote them:

1. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Margaret Wise Brown, Goodnight Moon
3. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
4. Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
5. A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner
6. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
7. Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham
8. Henry David Thoreau, Walden
9. Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are
10. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

So, that's it for now, I guess. Um... the end?