If you don't know the end of your book, what are you writing towards?
Everything in your plot should be pushing your reader towards the ending. That might mean you have to set up a bunch of things to be revealed at the end. Or reactions have to occur at the end. But they need to be prepped at the beginning and throughout the middle or else, it feels like a deus ex machina… or worse.
You know the endings I mean, the ones that seem to come out of left field, that wrap the story up in a very unsatisfying way. Stephen King slays me with how abrupt some of his endings feel. I like his writing, I like his stories, I'm invested in his characters. I got to the end of Under the Dome and went, "WTF?! It's all just an alien kid playing a game?" Because none of that was hinted at or alluded to or even remotely identified in any way throughout the rest of the novel, the sudden appearance of alien tech in the middle of the woods just seemed completely out of place. As if King tacked it on at the end in a fit of "inspiration".
I don't know if that's what happened; maybe he had that idea all along. The problem is that the entire plot hinged upon a mysterious "something" trapping the townspeople under an impenetrable dome. By reducing that "something" to a little kid alien playing a game, it cheapened all the terrible things that happened to the townspeople. Of course, the whole idea was to show us how these characters reacted under pressure, and the stress brought out the worst in them (and maybe for some, the best).
But I was unsatisfied with the ending because it felt unsupported. It hadn't been set up, and therefore was unexpected.
So you must think about offering your readers all the information and clues they need to expect the ending, and then happily surprise them by giving it to them in a way they hadn't expected. Boy Saves the World from Evil Overlord but not in a flashy showdown. Instead, he stops fighting and forgives. I expected him to win, but not by shutting off his lightsaber. I got the ending I wanted (and expected) but also a little something else.
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