Many modern novels these days suffer from a curious problem. Their authors are a little embarrassed about the conventions of plot — the climax, the tidying of loose ends, the magician’s withdraw. Their solution is a little bland: too many endings just peter out sadly, assuring us that life for the character will go on as it already does, or just slightly sadder, and that the world really hasn’t been changed by what has occurred in these pages. I’ve read several contemporary novels lately that are going along just great until this tepid sort of ending, leaving me making excuses for an otherwise electrifying work. Luckily, though, this isn’t a fate all books must fall into. Here are a few tips for making sure your ending isn’t so lukewarm.

Withhold one last bit of information until the end.

Ideally, your readers should be surprised or engaged down to the very last sentence of your story. The problem is that the major climax usually doesn’t happen in the last sentence. So instead of spewing everything out a page beforehand, continue to hold a little nugget of information in reserve. Hold it close to the chest, so to speak, until the last possible moment that you can reveal. It could be something big, like the fact that someone is alive when everyone thought he was dead, or something small, like the fact that the vase was stolen. Just make it something to keep us thinking even as we’re closing the book.

After the jump: two more ways to add oomph to your endings.

Make your character surprisingly self-aware.

Another way to keep your character guessing is to present the story, then show at the end that the character knew more than the reader thought he did. Maybe he seemed like a fool throughout the story, but in the final scene, you could show that maybe, just maybe, it was an act. Maybe he did know more about his situation and made his choices willingly. This kind of self-awareness is so intriguing to us that it’s almost like another plot point in the story, another form of what happens next.

Use a final, striking detail to keep us reading.

It’s important not to spiral off into abstract analysis at the end of the story. You may indulge in a sentence or two of reflection, but don’t make those the last sentences of your piece. Instead, focus in on some new image of concrete thing that has been important throughout the story. A pair of glasses, the last dress she wore, the leash and collar of the dog now gone. Show us what these objects mean. Give us a new revelation about how they have figured into the story. It’s one more way to keep us rooted in the world until the very last breath.