Summer vacation is over now, students. Welcome back to another semester of fanfiction academy. We ran out of time last year to get to this lesson, so I'll just have to start the year off with it. Any idea what it is? Keeping you in suspense is the one perk this job has, now that I no longer receive health benefits. Is it perhaps going to be on coming up with a good title? Maybe an advisory to restrict your use of needlessly extravagant or archaic terms to pieces which only the most bibliophilic of scholars would bother to peruse, do you think? No, this lesson will be on how to write a good ending.
The best part about fanfiction is that you can give it the ending you want. You can't be told how it will end and when you can end it by your publisher. A significant number of books that are in the public spotlight or have a large following will often be drug out longer and longer in an attempt to earn more money. The only way professional authors can end a series is by killing the protagonist (and probably about half the supporting roles, too), give them their happy ending and kids, or let the villains nuke the world. Granted, none of these is a definite way of ending a series, as there are millions of ways to get around them.
The fanfiction author has much more freedom. Say they decided that they were tired of a story, tired of the plot, tired of the characters, and just plain tired of all the negative feedback. What can they do? Write a chapter where the protagonist fails, dies, the nuke goes off, whatever. Heck, they may even win because the main baddie decides that they have left things up to their worms for long enough and comes out to fight one-on-one. The main point is: the fanfic author has control. What they say goes. Screw the criticism you're going to get for dropping it out of nowhere and dropping the other unresolved plot lines and shortening a story that could have been long enough to overload the server.
It might be wise to point out what each kind of ending is. Go nuts.
The Happy Ending: The hero(in) has slain the villain, rescued the girl (or dude), given their cola advert, and saved the world. Now they settle down, have kids, go to White Castle, or do whatever it is that lets them live happily ever after.
The Tragic Ending: The protag' is dead, or as good as. The love interest is dead. The villain may or may not have lost, but things have ended badly for the cast of heroes. That's not a typo. I do mean 'heroes' not 'Heroes.'
The Ewok Ending: Whatever happens, the story has ended on a rather zany note that can be mainly happy, sad, or angry, but really leaves you thinking, "What the hell? This is weird. Okay. Sure."
The Bitter End: The hero has lost or become a traitor. The villain has succeeded in their nefarious plot and the whole world is suffering the consequences of the hero's failure.
The Good Bad Ending: The villain has won. But what's this? Everyone is happy? Turns out that the villain's plan worked out well for the world in the end. The hero may or may not be in a good situation after this, but the hero losing has resulted in a happy ending.
The Screw It Ending: The author doesn't really care to finish the story and decides just to end it where it is with a little note to the readers saying they honestly don't care anymore.
However you choose to end your story, keep one thing in mind: It's your bloody story. You can end it however you want. But it is your responsibility to ensure that your readers get an end.
Your homework tonight is to read the next five chapters of My Immortal and write a 30,000 word essay detailing the many failings of the author in presenting a story which is entertaining and presents the characters in a believable and sympathetic manner.