Did you solve your story?

Story endings can be hard. Not only because you have to say goodbye to your characters, but it feels like this is the moment that will make or break your story.

A successful ending can be hard.

But here is one question you can ask yourself to help find the right ending for your story: Did you solve your story?

Whatever problem was moving your story along, was it resolved?

Did your protagonist grow up? Did they attain their goal? Was the world saved? Did the couple get together in the end?

There are a lot of things to consider in order to create a good ending. One of them is to make sure that you have satisfied the promise you made to your reader in the first pages of your story and showed your characters either succeed or fail in the goal that was moving everything along.

Start there and see where your ending goes based on that.

People need to change

Stories and novels have different paces, impetuses, and drivers. Some stories are all about characters evolving and others are about people surviving what is happening around them.

No matter what your story is about, however, readers will come for the characters. They want to know about people. They want to see themselves there. They want to feel some satisfaction for the characters when the story is over.

So, regardless of what action is happening in your story, you need to make sure that characters progress, change, and evolve. You have to make sure that characters are somewhere else at the end of the story. Not physically, but as humans.

You can make anything the focus of your story, but make sure that something happens to at least one of your characters along the way to change them. Your readers are waiting for it.

Second chance resolutions

January is almost done. How are you doing with your resolutions?

More specifically, how are you doing with your writing resolutions?

Have you reached your word count every day or week? Have you tried new styles? Are you fully in on the Bradbury challenge?

Whatever writing resolutions you've made, you still have time to make them a success.

Maybe you've missed a few days or have given up completely. Well, while the year may no longer be new, the time to improve hasn't disappeared. Every day is a new beginning and a chance for you to get back to your resolutions.

So, forget about your challenges and get back on that horse. You've got plenty of time to achieve resolution success.

No one is that interesting

No one is so interesting that they can carry a story by themselves.

You may love your character, but you're asking a lot if you want readers to stay with them for an entire novel without anyone else around or any extraordinary circumstances.

In some cases, nature might become your second character. You might have characters outside the scene that the main character remembers or talks to in his or her mind. You might have the weather be its own character to antagonize a character who's stuck on a boat.

Whatever you're writing, remember that it needs to interest readers, and that few readers will be interested by just one character.

Make sure that you give readers something equivalent to another character to cling on to and love or hate as you write.

Edit toward clarity

There are a lot of things you have to think about when you're editing your work. There are a lot of rules and conventions that you have to remember. There are a lot of ways you could go wrong.

Here is one that I was recently reminded of when someone else read my work: Your reader doesn’t know what you're thinking. They don't know what's important and what's not. They don't know why someone is asking a question or why you aren't telling them something. They don't know that you know what you’re doing.

So, you have to show them. You have to edit your writing to make sure that you're showing your reader what they need to trust you. Tell them where you are. Tell them when you are. Tell them who these people are and why they matter. Tell them what each pronoun means.

When you're editing, don't just worry about grammar and spelling. Remember that your story has to make sense to someone who doesn't know where you're going. Make your story clear and then worry about the details.

Learn something new

New year, new goals, new skills.

Why not commit to learning something new this new year?

Maybe you can find a way to use AI to help you with your research. Maybe you can explore the world of self-publishing. Maybe you can explore grammar like you never have before.

Or, maybe you can just learn about a subject that interests you to see if you can make it the star of your next novel.

Learning something new is always good. Even if it turns out to be a useless endeavour, it keeps your brain young. And you never know what it might inspire.

So what are you going to learn this year to move you forward?

What are your 2026 writing goals?

Every year is another chance at writing. Okay, every day is another chance at writing, but a new year can help kick you in the butt and motivate you to move faster.

Finish a novel. Edit a novel. Submit something for publication. Go to a conference. Present at a conference.

Every year is a new chance to get something important done. Write down your 2026 writing goals and see if you can outdo your writing achievements next year.