I read a novel yesterday by a promising young writer and although I enjoyed it, I was reminded of just how important satisfying endings are.  Like openings, endings are tricky. When editors send back a short story or reject a novel, nine times out of ten they’ll say the ending didn’t work for them.  It’s also often the first criticism you’ll here from other writers in workshops.  Endings need to satisfy.  Your closing, it's been said, caps your story the way a roof caps a house.  It’s the last impression and, like first impressions, counts heavily in fiction. If it's predictable, implausible, trite or saccharine, you'll disappoint your reader, and a disappointed reader is...

‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.’
- Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863–1944. On the Art of Writing. 1916.