WHAT STORY SLAMS CAN TEACH YOU ABOUT BUSINESS COPY III: Ending It Early Is Ending It Well
This week I'm thinking about the part of your email, newsletter, or blog post that doesn't get so much attention.
The end.
Business owners are often stressed out about how to get started on an email, presentation, or other written content.
But once you get going, a bigger problem is knowing when to stop. You might find you have so much to say—such funny anecdotes, so much enthusiasm and knowledge—that you don't want to wrap it up.
You want your reader to feel the way you do, to love your topic with bravado and goofy fascination. If you pack in some more examples or statistics, they'll get it, right? They'll see that you love your work AND that you're really good at it.
We've been talking about how people deliver stories from the stage at story slam competitions and storytelling events. Successful storytellers pay particular attention to endings because an ill-timed departure can be a death-blow to a finely crafted, funny, poignant, or tear-inducing story. In fact, a big part of the craft of storytelling is to know what to cut and when to stop.
"Leave them wanting more" applies here. One trick, if the end wanders, is to try cutting the last paragraph or two. It's common to slip around at the end. You may have written past the perfect ending.
Or maybe you've written a satisfying conclusion but it feels too complete, a little flat. Like a bow on a white gift box. It's nice but dull. It conceals more than it offers.
If that's the case, check your honesty. A lot of us sugar-coat our stories. Don't do that. A cliché ending won't inspire your reader to lick or explore. And if your story really did end up just so? Try leaving that part out. Stop before it ends to help make your story less about the conclusion and more about the process.
It can be scary to leave people hanging or cut relevant asides, but if you leave it all in, you risk writing something that's too long, too wordy, or inauthentic. Instead, write what's real so they'll want to come back.