What I Learned About Endings From The End Of The White Lotus Season 3 (SPOILERS WITHIN)

Sorry, sorry, sorry, and sorry, I’m back on The White Lotus. And this one is spoilerific. So if you haven’t seen it yet, don’t read on. If you’re not going to watch it, the references are only minor because they are but a way of talking about the thing I actually want to talk about… how to end your story.

I’ll do a little bit of preamble to bury the spoiler bit below the preview so you don’t accidentally see something you shouldn’t. But here’s the thing about the ending: it has to be inevitable. It has to be the inevitable conclusion to the story you introduce on page one or in scene one. Sure, there are other ways you could end it, and your reader will appreciate being given options for where you might go, and often their theories might be way wilder than what you’re intending to do, but the ending you choose, the one that will satisfy us as you conclude, must feel inevitable.