The Perfect Ending: Concluding the Narrative Essay

Concluding a narrative essay can be a challenge for experienced and beginning writers alike. Writers often fall into the trap of tying the narrative up too neatly, telling the readers what they are supposed to take away from their story instead of letting the reader come to their own conclusions. Study a few essays from some of the great writers and notice how they conclude their stories. Often the ending to their narratives is left ambiguous; the reader isn’t exactly sure how everything will turn out. The reader should be left with a sense of closure, without being told how or what to feel. 

Conclude with an Image

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Show, don’t tell”? Showing an image puts a visual in the reader’s mind, an effective way to conclude without telling too much. Showing an image prevents you from telling your feelings, which, in most cases, you want to avoid. In the essay “Buckeye,” Scott Russell Sanders uses the image of a grazing deer to conclude his narrative:

. . . within a few paces of a grazing deer, close enough to see the delicate lips, the twitching nostrils, the glossy, fathomless eyes.

This lyrical conclusion comes from “Bathing,” as writer Kathryn Winograd shows the last moments of her bath:

The wind sings through the window like a siren, and the steam floats from my skin like milk.

Conclude in the Action

Show yourself in action. Move. Do something, anything, to avoid telling the reader how happy, or sad, or hopeful you are in the end. Look at something, and walk away, as Edward Hoagland does in “The Courage of Turtles”:

But since, short of diving in after him, there was nothing I could do, I walked away.

Or look at something, and become mesmerized. A chapter from the classic memoir, Stop Time by Frank Conroy, “Yo-Yo Going Down, a Mad Squirrel Coming Up,” shows a young Conroy as he watches a girl through a window:

That same night, hidden in the greenery under the window, I watched a naked girl let down her long red hair.

Conclude with Dialogue

Dialogue can be tricky to conclude with, but can work if it avoids a message or moral. You’ll only want to use this concluding technique if it has been maintained in the narrative; you probably don’t want to throw in spoken word if we haven’t heard anyone speak up until that point.

David Sedaris, in his essay, “Cyclops,” ends with the voice of his father, who is the main character in this essay:

“I don’t know where you got it from, but in the end, it’s going to kill you.”

The following brief reply, taken from Jo Ann Beard’s “The Fourth State of Matter,” shows an image, followed by unquoted dialogue. Beard uses italics instead:

Around my neck is the stone he brought me from Poland. I hold it out. Like this? I ask. Shards of fly wings, suspended in amber.
Exactly, he says.

Another example below comes again from Scott Russell Sanders, this from “Cloud Crossing,” as his toddler son babbles:

“Moon,” he is piping from the back seat, “moon, moon!”

Conclude by Reflecting

When used well, reflection is a great way to convey feelings without telling the reader how you felt – or how they should feel. Reflection offers the writer’s thoughts about what is happening or has happened. Reflection can include thoughts about the moment or thoughts looking back, about the experience. Reflection can add clarity, as we see the writer thinking through the experience. This concluding moment is from James Baldwin’s, “Notes of a Native Son”:

. . . I wished that he had been beside me so that I could have searched his face for the answers which only the future would give me now.

Bret Lott, in his short essay, “Brothers,” reflects on childhood memories of his family, taking him into the present with his own two sons:

What I believe is this: That pinch was entry into our childhood; my arm around him, our smiling, is the proof of us two surfacing, alive but not unscathed.
And here are my own two boys, already embarked.

In Conclusion

When writing your own conclusion, think about what you want your readers to take away from your story. Then think about how best you can show it. You seldom can go wrong with images. Dialogue is a great way to let a character have the last word. Ending with reflection, sharing thoughts or feelings, works when a bit more needs to be said. Think about what feeling, emotion, or question you want to leave your readers with, the take-away, then choose the type of conclusion that best suits the narrative. It’s not unusual to actually write the conclusion first, and it often serves as a road map to get the narrative where it needs to go. Taking time to carefully craft a conclusion can make or break your narrative.

 

 

 

Lasting Impression: Concluding your Argument Essay

Introductions and conclusions in persuasive papers often cause the most difficulty and angst for beginning writers. If you’ve spent your essay arguing passionately on a topic, you don’t want to fall flat in the end. The conclusion is your final chance to appeal to your audience and make a strong final impression.

A great conclusion will not only close the essay, but close the sale on your argument. Throughout the paper, you have been selling your audience on your position, and a successful conclusion will tie it all together, leaving your reader at least considering the merits of your argument. Unfortunately, by the time you get to your conclusion, most writers are either exhausted from writing the paper and end it too quickly, or can’t stop arguing their position and backload it with too much new information at the end.

Strategies for Great Conclusions

Generally, conclusions do three things:

• Reiterates the main idea, re-emphasizing your position

• Summarizes your argument

• Provides a warning, explains consequences, poses questions for further study, or delivers a call-to-action – sometimes all of the above.

 

Note, however, that restating, re-emphasizing, and summarizing does not mean repeating word-for-word your thesis statement or other major points. The purpose of the conclusion is to remind the reader of the importance of your argument, synthesizing the information you’ve provided in the body, and show how the points you’ve made throughout your argument all fit together.

Framing Your Argument

If you’ve begun your paper with a scenario or framed it with a story, return to the theme you introduced in the introduction. This frame serves as a thread that ties the two ends (intro & conclusion) together.

An example of a frame for an argument on creating harsher penalties for texting while driving might be beginning the introduction retelling a true story of a car crash caused by texting while driving. The conclusion will come back to that scenario, perhaps completing the story you began telling in the intro, explaining the outcome or consequences. This complete story “frames” the narrative.

Project Outcomes

Another strategy for a successful conclusion might be to ask the reader to consider a future where your proposal has succeeded or your position is the norm. For instance, if your argument was to create more educational funding for job training outside of college, you might project a scenario where previously unemployed and uneducated men and women were now working in occupations with job security and stable wages with benefits.

What’s the “Take-Away”?

When drafting the conclusion, go big and broad. As focused and narrow as the intro should be, the conclusion can provide a larger framework to conclude your essay. Consider the broader implications related to your argument. Elaborate on the consequences of failing to follow through with your proposal or supporting your argument. Leave the audience with a question to ponder or something to think about. This is referred to as a “take-away.” Just as an intro requires a great “hook” to immediately pique the interest of the reader, the conclusion has to leave the audience with something tangible that sticks in their minds, an idea to consider or consequences of failing to act. What’s the take-away for the audience?

Things to Avoid in a Conclusion

In conclusion

I’ve listed this first, as it’s not only the most common, but also the most obnoxious. The most common words used to begin conclusions – that you should never use – are “in conclusion.” This is like putting up a big road sign that we are now reading your conclusion. Although it might be necessary to say the words in a speech, it’s totally unnecessary and almost cliché to use them in an essay. If it isn’t abundantly clear to the audience that we are now reading the conclusion, go back and revise it.

Repeating

You’ve stated your thesis succinctly in the introduction, so avoid repeating it verbatim in the conclusion. This comes across as not only repetitive, but clumsy and awkward.

Research

Hopefully, you’ve laid out your argument in the body of the essay, including strong support with outside sources. Avoid adding more new facts, statistics or quotes in the conclusion. This isn’t the place for more research. If you feel you have more to add to your points, put it in the body of the paper, not the conclusion.

Old Information & Nothing New

I’ll paraphrase an example: “In this paper I argued yada-yada, because of reason 1, 2 and 3. So I hope you’ll agree that you should agree with me. Thank you.”

This type of conclusion is simply repeating everything you’ve just said in your entire paper, adding nothing new. It’s painfully boring and just a bit condescending, as you are  telling the reader what they have just read, as if they don’t know what they’ve just read. Or you’re not confidant you communicated your argument effectively, and if that’s the case, go back and revise.

 

 

 

 

Conclusions can be tricky, and by the time we’re done writing a long research paper, they are usually the last thing we want to spend time writing. By considering what impression you most want to leave the audience with, these decisions will guide you to compose a great lasting impression.