I strongly recommend you get the book and read it, even if it's only for ideas on how to improve endings, but in the meantime, a
quickie rendition of what he says goes as follows:

M--milieu stories start when a character finds himself (let herself be understood here, okay?) in some place strange and has to learn how to deal with this new place while trying to return to familiar territory. A milieu story ends either when the character finds the way home, or learns to live happily in the new place.

I--idea stories start when there is some puzzle or mystery or question (what is really going on here?) and they end when the puzzle, mystery, question is resolved/answered/revealed.

(I'd like to add that there are many amateur stories which try to be idea stories and end up sounding like the beginning of a novel because the readers want to know what the characters do about the situation now that they understand what is actually going on. If that is the case, to end the story with just the revelation would be cheating the reader, and that's why they're amateur stories.)

C--character stories start when a character experiences role problems. OSC talks about characters who desire a different role from the one they're in, but I think this also applies to characters who are torn from their comfort zones/roles and try to get back. Character stories end when the character either achieves the desired role, or learns to accept something else.

E--event stories start when the main character decides to do something about the loss of the status quo. (Whatever has upset the status quo could be centuries in the past, but the event story starts when the main character finally won't take it any more.) Event stories end when the status quo is restored, or a new (and, we hope, better) world is created out of the struggle.

I would think that once the character has found his/her proper role/niche then that character would be empowered and ready to go on to solve the idea question part of the story.

I'm having trouble with the end-end, that is, the part after the big climax. Perhaps I've heard this called the denoument? I'm not sure. Anyway, I've gotten more-or-less successfully through mount doom, but I am struggling with the scouring of the shire, so to speak. The novel is mostly a milieu/event story with a bit of the C and I thrown in, and these are basically all tied up in the climax.

But the pacing seems wrong to just stop when the story is going full speed. I'm not sure how to make it work. The current draft has a two page last chapter that is kind of a 'riding off into the sunset' ending, which is not too horrid, but still somewhat abrupt. I have considered a sequence of scenes that show some of the fallout across the land, but this seems too saccarine sweet to me--too fairy tale.

I know this is not a lot to go on, but any general hints or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Erk

All stories are defined by the essential dramatic structure of establishing a problem or tension that the audience wants to see resolved, then bringing that tension to a climax, then resolving it in a manner acceptable to the audience.

Every story breaks down into sub-stories, just as any real world problem can be broken down into discrete but interelated steps, each of which have to be successfully accomplished in order to deal with the larger problem. This process is usually nested, such that each smaller problem fits entirely within a larger problem. If your character's dramatic transformation takes place within the larger context of the resolution of a mystery, then it makes sense to treat it this way, even if you feel that this element is more important than the larger story. Another option is to have the mystery as background in the story, the same way that even though many of our lives have been lived chronologically within the context of the history of the U.S., or so forth, we don't write our life stories as subordinate elements of that history, we simply leave that history in the background of our personal life stories. If you have really lost interest in using the mystery story as the overarching dramatic tension, then you should simply eliminate all the story prior to the begining of your character's story.

In a more general sense, I would say that you should take a single dramatic tension, work that through to its resolution, and consider that story finished. 'Tis okay to have characters that still have issues, problems that haven't been solved, milieu that hasn't been fully explored, or ideas that are hinted at but not fully explicated. These might easily become the subjects of sequels, if they are actually all that interesting, or simply be left alone, if you have no interest in them.

In any case, you should consider your story finished when the core dramatic tension is resolved. To make things easy, this should be the tension that you have introduced near the beginning of the story, brought to a climax near the end, and that is related to (either affecting or being affected by) everything within the story. You should consider this tension resolved once the audience is satisfied that it has been resolved. If the tension is a murder, then the usual resolution is revelation and punishment of the murderer, the audience would typically be unsatisfied if you let the murderer get away. Alternatively, you can have a homicide turn out to be justified, and this revelation can ease the tension felt by the audience such that they don't insist on knowing the fate of the killer. In either case, you have to relieve the underlying tension experienced by the audiance.

The reason that the ending of the LOTR dragged out so long past the scene on the slopes of Orodruin is not because (or not only because) Tolkein naively wanted to get all his characters safely home. The central dramatic tension of the story is the ending of the Third Age of Middle Earth, and properly must cover the departure of magic from the land. Thus the scouring of the Shire demonstrates a shift from the heavily magical adventures of the previous age, and establishes a supplanting ordering principle in the world of Middle Earth, the battle is unmagical, and won by sound tactical sense, not by heroics. If Tolkien had gotten everyone safely home, but then failed to show magic passing out of the world, at least some of his more perceptive readers would have been outraged, since he makes it clear that the ending of the Third Age as seen by the hobbits, not the overthrow of Sauron and the destruction of the One, is his central story.

If you think of it in terms of a validation (or a recognition that the story is over), then it might be easier to think about.

Yes, the hero rides off into the sunset, and he can do that because he has beaten the bad guy and saved the people, and they have come to thank him before he goes.

Some stories really need something like that at the end, and some stories work better without it--you have to decide which works best for your story. (Would STAR WARS, A NEW HOPE have felt okay if it had ended with the MILLENIUM FALCON and the two Rebel fighters flying away from the Death Star as it exploded? Possibly, but the award ceremony was kind of fun.) (Does AMERICAN GRAFFITTI need the epilog--what happened to everyone--at the end? Maybe not, but it was kind of fun, too.) (Why am I citing George Lucas movies here? AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!)

Anyway, I think looking at the "denouement" as the "validation scene" might be useful.