{"id":16612,"date":"2026-01-16T05:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T05:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/?p=16612"},"modified":"2026-01-16T05:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T05:46:08","slug":"how-to-end-a-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2026\/01\/16\/how-to-end-a-story\/","title":{"rendered":"How to end a story"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
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Sign up for the Nieman Storyboard newsletter,<\/em><\/a> delivered every Friday in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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***<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Dear Storyboard community: <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Five years after the January 6th insurrection, Washington Post reporter Ellie Silverman<\/a> takes us into an incongruous place: a middle school classroom. Teacher Nathan Tate tells his students about his previous job<\/a> as a D.C. police officer who defended the U.S. Capitol from pro-Trump protesters on that day.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Silverman begins the story in Tate\u2019s classroom: <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Nathan Tate had told almost no one about that day five years ago. He worried people might not believe him. Or they\u2019d think he sounded weak. Or Tate would laugh, because that\u2019s what he does when he\u2019s nervous, even though nothing about Jan. 6 was funny to him.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n \n

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Looking out at his classroom of 23 middle-schoolers \u2014 kids shifting in their seats and doodling in their workbooks \u2014 he wasn\u2019t sure what they already knew. They were third-graders in 2021. This lesson could be the first time they heard about it from someone they trusted.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n \n

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\u201cLet\u2019s talk,\u201d the social studies teacher said.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Finding an ending for the 3,000-word feature proved trickier. When she turned in an early draft of the story, it left space with the note, \u201cSomething as the kicker,\u201d said Silverman\u2019s editor, Kelley Benham French.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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As it happened, French and other Post staffers had been reading Susan Orlean\u2019s memoir \u201cJoyride\u201d<\/a> for their book club. Advice in the book, along with a Zoom discussion with Orlean herself, helped them find an ending. Here\u2019s Orlean on why stories often can\u2019t be neatly summarized:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Conclusions, though, bedevil me. What are they supposed to accomplish? You\u2019ve already followed me to the end of the story, so the act of seduction has succeeded; what do I do with you now? How do we say goodbye? It\u2019s confounding. Stories do<\/em> have beginnings, but do they ever truly have endings? The real finale of the story, the terminus, is the end of my relationship with the reader. I\u2019ve led you all this way, and now I\u2019m setting you on your way; our journey together is done. The story doesn\u2019t finish\u2014but our time together, yours and mine, does. That\u2019s the conclusion, that separation of storyteller and listener, the small sorrow of the journey\u2019s end.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n \n

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My first significant editing experience at The New Yorker had to do with the ending of a piece. When Chip [McGrath, Orlean’s editor] chopped off that wagging tail of a conclusion I had written at the end of my story about Benetton, I was dismayed. I thought it was like someone had stopped the action midmoment, the reading equivalent of inhaling sharply and holding it, holding it\u2014and not letting it out.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n \n

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After my initial shock at this excision, I read the piece again, and this time the abruptness felt right. Had I gotten used to the lingering note of the unfinished end? The way it left the reader falling forward, to complete the piece in his or her own head? I began to unlearn my habit of writing those summary upsurges, rehashing what I\u2019d already written and then, effortfully, trying to round out the story, complete it, give it ballast, make it matter<\/em>. But does a story end because the journalist\u2019s eye has drifted from it? Can any of us set the seal on a story, ever? Should I tell you what a story meant, or is the point that you read it and then it\u2019s up to you to determine what it means? I\u2019ve come to understand that no story is ever over, and it\u2019s the reader\u2019s duty and privilege, not mine, to take stock of the story and give it weight.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Silverman went back through her notes. \u201cI started asking her what else she had in her notebook,\u201d French said, \u201cand we were going through things and filling out sections and rearranging sections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Here\u2019s how Silverman ended the piece: <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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The class was getting a little rowdier, and Tate thought this could be a good moment to tell them what he wished the country had already realized.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n \n

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He pointed at Allisson and said, \u201cI was defending your democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n \n

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She looked puzzled, and then she said: \u201cMine?\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n \n

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Democracy, he wanted them to know, wasn\u2019t just built or broken in revolutionary moments or clouds of smoke. It required one person, and then another, to pay attention.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n \n

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Allisson blinked.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n \n

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\u201cWait,\u201d she said. \u201cMine?\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u201cThat quote just felt to me like a Susan Orlean kind of ending,\u201d French said. \u201cJust let the reader experience that moment, too, and let the reader take it the rest of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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It\u2019s one small moment in one classroom, about an event that is still playing out right now. No story ever really ends, but the way we tell it matters \u2014 in real-time and five years later \u2014 to future generations.  <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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***<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Author Grace Talusan on going to uncomfortable places in your writing<\/a><\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\"Grace<\/a>
Grace Talusan. Photo by Alonso Nichols<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> \n
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Storyboard contributor Erika Hayasaki<\/a> speaks with author and essayist Grace Talusan, who teaches creative nonfiction at Brown University. As Hayasaki writes, \u201cBefore the holiday break, tragedy gripped the Brown campus in Rhode Island, as a gunman opened fire on students who were prepping for exams, killing two and wounding nine others. I interviewed Grace about her teaching and writing before the shooting, checking in with her again in the hours and weeks after. Still reeling, she is now focusing on helping students use writing to process and try to heal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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[ Read the story<\/a> ]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Links of note<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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