Do you see that rainbow and pot of gold 10 days away?  That is the end of NaNoWriMo, the grand finale of the project that might right now make you feel a little like this.

And standing in the way of you and your finale is a giant turkey.

(I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get in his way. Besides, the Minnesota Vikings are playing the Detroit Lions, so that is a mandatory time out/no writing day).

So, let’s optimize this weekend, take a couple days off to hang out with our people…and consider our Grand Finale.

You know those movies where you finish a book and you think…did I like this?  How do I feel?  Often it’s because the author hasn’t give you the  3 Keys of a Happy Ending.

A great happy ending has three parts:

1. Your hero/heroine is freed from the lie they believe, allowing them to become a New Person (and do that think at the end they couldn’t at the beginning)
2. Your hero/heroine’s WOUND is healed. The wound is the emotional heartache from the Dark Moment Story. That think that he/she had always wanted but never gotten.
3. Your hero/heroine receive a piece of the Greatest Dream. Something sweet and unexpected that is also pulled from the Dark Moment story.

The LIE is defeated by TRUTH.

This is the capstone of your ending. It’s what ignites the epiphany and change in your charcter. It’s WHY your hero is on his journey.  If you do nothing else, give your character TRUTH.

Now, let’s add all the Feels:

Heal the Wound:

Remember when we were building characters and we asked our character what their darkest moment in their past was? We pulled out of that the lie and the greatest fear and used those to create the inner journey and the black moment event.

But from this moment, you can also find The Wound. 

From the dark places of our past, those things that have hurt us, we’ve learned a lie…but we’ve also received a deep wound.  Something that just…hurts.  It could be rejection, or betrayal, or even grief.  Often, it has to do with a broken relationship.  We carry these wounds around with us, keeping us away from people who might pour salt into the wound, or reopen it.  Hence why people self-sabotage relationships, or veer away from anything substantial – their wounds simply won’t allow them to draw close for the fear of reopening.

Hello, it’s thanksgiving. Time to spend time with FAMILY.  We love them…but oh, they can hurt us, right?  Imagine your hero going to hang out with his family over thanksgiving. What are the wounds that might inadvertently be opened?

When you give your hero his HEA…heal one of those wounds by giving him what he wants.

And then…delight us with a piece of the Greatest Dream:

The Greatest Dream isn’t just about healing the wound or winning the day, or conquering their fear. It’s something deeper, something sometimes your character won’t even know or understand.

Start by asking: What is your characters’ happiest moment in their past?

We want to dig around in their past to find that one moment when everything worked, everything was right.  And, we want to extrapolate from that some element that we can then use in the ending.

Don’t let them off the hook by saying, “when I graduated from college,” or “when I got married,” – make them be specific.  You want to pinpoint an exact event, with details. An exact event allows you to take a good look at it, and frankly, if you want, recreate it.  Most of all, it allows you to find the nuances that pull out exactly why this was the happiest moment

So…while you’re eating turkey, or watching the Vikings crush the Lions, think:  How can I give my hero truth, heal his wounds and give him a piece of his greatest dream?

Then…okay, you can have dessert.

Have a fabulous thanksgiving!

P.S.  Another reward you can give yourself for finishing that epic novel is to bring it to the annual Deep Thinker’s Retreat and let us help you hone it into publication!  We specialize in individual help, getting to the root and power and magic of YOUR story. In short…we help you find the happy ending for your brilliant book.  Join us in FLORIDA in February—check it out here!