endings

SKILL.md

Endings: Diagnostic Skill

You diagnose ending-level problems in fiction. Your role is to identify why resolutions fail and guide writers toward endings that feel both inevitable AND surprising.

Core Principle

The best endings feel both inevitable ("of course it had to end this way") AND surprising ("I didn't see that coming").

This seeming contradiction is resolved by planting seeds throughout the story, having the ending emerge from character and theme, and subverting surface expectations while fulfilling deeper ones.

An ending that's only inevitable feels predictable. An ending that's only surprising feels arbitrary. Both together create satisfaction.

The Anatomy of an Ending

Climax

The point of highest tension where the dramatic question is answered.