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# How to End a Story: Open vs Closed Endings, Examples
- URL: https://leventbulut.com/how-to-end-a-story-open-ending/
- Published: 2026-11-01T14:12:26.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-01T14:13:35.000Z
- Description: How do you end a story? Open, closed and twist endings, Aristotle's and Chekhov's tests, and one story written with three different endings.
- Author: Levent Bulut
- Tags: Narrative Engineering

# How to End a Story: Open and Closed Endings, with Examples

**Conflict of Interest and Academic Grounding Statement (COI):** This article examines how to end a story through the core sources of narrative theory and the craft tradition, and discusses its relation to the Objective Projection method as a writing suggestion. [Levent Bulut](https://leventbulut.com/) is the founder of the Objective Projection and Narrative Engineering methodology. The methodology's rules and dataset have been published openly and are open to audit. The example endings were written for this article. Which ending satisfies readers more has not been tested with readers. 

### Summary and Practical Framework

The ending of a story is the answer to the question the reader has carried through it, or the deliberate decision to leave that question open. This article defines the ending through Aristotle's idea of a “whole” and the exposition, complication and resolution plan taught in schools; compares the closed, open, twist and framing ending in a table; and summarizes Stockton's open ending and O. Henry's twist ending. Our main question is this: is an open ending the same thing as not naming the emotion? Through an original example with three endings to the same story, we suggest that these are two separate questions: one concerns the outcome of the events, the other how the emotion is delivered. Which ending satisfies readers was not tested in this article.

## What is the ending of a story?

The ending of a story is the point where the main question raised by the plot is answered, or deliberately left unanswered. School textbooks describe the plan of a plot-driven story in three parts: exposition, complication and resolution. The exposition introduces the characters and the situation, the complication builds the conflict, and the resolution brings the reader's curiosity to an outcome. That outcome can be happy, sad or surprising.

In chapter 7 of the *Poetics*, Aristotle defines a well-constructed plot as a “whole”: it has a beginning, a middle and an end. For him, the end is the point that follows something else by necessity or probability, but is not itself followed by anything that it requires. The definition shows why an ending is not simply the last page: it is the natural destination of everything that came before it.

The American literary theorist Barbara Herrnstein Smith makes the same distinction for poetry in her 1968 book *Poetic Closure*: some things merely stop, while a work concludes. Her subject is poetry, but the distinction applies to fiction as well: the last line of a story and its ending are not always the same thing.

## At a glance: four endings

The table below is a comparison prepared for this article. The boundaries between the types are not sharp; one ending can carry features of more than one type.

| Ending         | What does the reader know at the last line?                                          | Classic example                                                 |
| -------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Closed ending  | The answer to the main question and where the characters have arrived.               | The last chapter of Austen's *Pride and Prejudice*              |
| Open ending    | The main question, but not its answer; the answer is left to the reader.             | Stockton's story “The Lady, or the Tiger?”                      |
| Twist ending   | An answer the reader did not expect, which makes the earlier pages read differently. | O. Henry's story “The Gift of the Magi”                         |
| Framing ending | An image or situation from the opening, returned with a difference.                  | A final stanza that repeats the first (Smith's poetic examples) |

## The resolution should come from inside the story

In chapter 15 of the *Poetics*, Aristotle says that the unravelling of a plot, like its complication, must arise from the plot itself. His example is Euripides' *Medea*, where the resolution arrives from outside by a divine stage device. That device later came to be known by the Latin phrase “deus ex machina” (god from the machine). For Aristotle, such an intervention should be used only for events outside the drama, for example to report what happened before it or to foretell what will come after.

For the writer, the point is simple: if the ending arrives through a power the reader was never shown, the reader does not receive the answer the story promised. We summarized Aristotle's view of plot within the history of narrative theory in [From Aristotle to the Bulut Doctrine](https://leventbulut.com/from-aristotle-to-the-bulut-doctrine-history-of-narrative-theory/). In detective fiction the same principle works as the rule that the clues to the solution are shown to the reader in advance; we discussed it in [Fair Play in Detective Fiction](https://leventbulut.com/fair-play-clues-detective-fiction/).

## The plot story, the situation story and Chekhov's letter

Turkish school textbooks often compare two kinds of short story. The plot story follows the exposition, complication and resolution plan and brings curiosity to an outcome; it is associated with Maupassant. The situation story offers a slice of life, does not follow that plan and often ends without a definite resolution; it is associated with Chekhov.

In a letter to the publisher Alexei Suvorin dated 27 October 1888, Chekhov draws a distinction that bears on this choice. In summary, he says it is right to ask an artist to approach the work consciously, but that solving a problem and posing the question correctly are two different things, and only the second is an obligation for the artist. The distinction is the shortest defence of the open ending: a story may leave the problem unsolved, but it must pose the question clearly and correctly.

The English critic Frank Kermode, in his 1967 book *The Sense of an Ending*, examines how the expectation of an end gives meaning to the middle of a narrative. For Kermode, people are born in the middle of time and turn to fictions with beginnings and ends to make sense of it. The ending, then, exists not only on the last page but also in the expectation the reader builds throughout the story.

## What does an open ending leave open?

An open ending is not a missing ending. Frank R. Stockton's “The Lady, or the Tiger?”, first published in *The Century* magazine in 1882, is its most frequently cited example. A king puts a young man who has fallen in love with his daughter in front of two doors: behind one is a tiger, behind the other a young woman he will marry. The princess has learned what lies behind each door and signals one of them to her lover. The young man opens that door; the story ends without saying what came out, turning the question over to the reader.

If the ending works, it is because the story makes both answers possible. That the princess might want to save her lover so as not to lose him, and that she might send him to the tiger so as not to give him to another woman, are both prepared inside the story. In Chekhov's terms, Stockton does not solve the problem, but he poses the question correctly.

Two kinds of openness can be distinguished:

- **Openness of event:** the reader does not know what happened. What came out of the door?
- **Openness of meaning:** the reader knows what happened but builds what it means on their own. As in Hemingway's iceberg idea, the unsaid part is left to the reader; we discussed how subtext is built in [What Is Subtext?](https://leventbulut.com/what-is-subtext-iceberg-theory/)

## The twist ending: making the earlier pages read again

In O. Henry's “The Gift of the Magi”, first published in *The New York Sunday World* on 10 December 1905, a poor couple each try to buy the other a secret Christmas present. Della sells her hair to buy a chain for her husband Jim's watch; Jim has sold his watch to buy combs for Della's hair. The ending makes both gifts useless at once.

A twist ending asks the reader to reread what came before: the last scene gives the earlier ones a new meaning. That is why the clues to the twist must already be in the text; otherwise the twist is not a resolution but an intervention from outside. O. Henry's ending is also commonly cited as an example of dramatic irony.

## Example: one story, three endings

The story below and its three endings were written for this article. The setup: for thirty-one years Zehra has run a small tailor's shop in Kurtuluş, Istanbul. Her daughter lives in Ankara and wants her mother to move in with her. Today a handover contract is to be signed with a young woman who wants to take over the shop. The question the reader carries is this: will Zehra give up the shop?

**Ending 1: closed, the emotion named**

> Zehra signed the contract. She felt relieved; at last she was free of the burden she had carried for years. As she boarded the evening bus she was happy. A new life was waiting for her with her daughter.

**Ending 2: closed, the emotion shown**

> Zehra signed all three pages of the contract. She folded the cover of the sewing machine and laid it on top of the machine. She slipped the last jacket on the rail into a bag and set it at the edge of the counter; on the bag she wrote in pencil, “Tuesday, Mr Kemal.” She took the shop key off its ring and put it in the new tenant's palm. At the terminal the ticket machine printed a short slip: Ankara, 22.30\. Zehra placed the ticket in the inside pocket of her coat and did up the button.

**Ending 3: open**

> The new tenant pushed the pen across the table toward Zehra. Zehra took it and set its tip on the signature line of the last page. Behind her the cover of the sewing machine was half off; a scrap of fabric lay under the needle. A school bus passed the shop window. On the counter the phone buzzed; the screen read “Daughter.” Zehra lifted the pen from the paper.

The three endings give different answers to two separate questions:

| Ending   | Is the question of the events answered?   | Is the emotion named?                                                               |
| -------- | ----------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Ending 1 | Yes: the contract is signed.              | Yes: “relieved”, “happy”.                                                           |
| Ending 2 | Yes: signature, key and ticket.           | No: the reader builds it from the folded cover and the ticket in the inside pocket. |
| Ending 3 | No: the pen lifts off the signature line. | No: both directions sit in the objects.                                             |

A fourth combination was also possible: leaving the event open while naming the emotion (“Zehra was torn; she did not know what to do”). That is also an open ending, but it hands the reader the answer about the emotion along with the question.

## An open ending and the Emotion Embargo are not the same thing

The **Emotion Embargo**, one of the two constitutional rules of Objective Projection, suggests that emotion is not named in the text but built from observable detail. The second ending in the table follows this suggestion, yet it is not open: the event is closed. The third ending both leaves the event open and leaves the emotion unnamed. An ending, then, can be open or closed in terms of the outcome of the events, and telling or showing in terms of how the emotion is delivered. The two choices are independent of each other.

Notice that in the third ending the openness sits in objects. The half-removed cover and the fabric under the needle point one way, the word “Daughter” on the screen points the other. As in Stockton's story, both answers are prepared inside the story. **Micro-Focus**, one of the four working rules, suggests concentrating the narrative on a narrow, concrete detail; here the weight of the final moment is carried by the tip of the pen above the signature line.

In the second ending the **Temporal Anchor** is at work: “22.30” on the ticket is a concrete time. The number can enter the text because it is something seen on the slip in Zehra's hand; we explained the difference between numbers in the writer's scene plan and numbers seen in the character's world in [The Output Layer](https://leventbulut.com/output-layer-objective-projection-writing/).

## The last scene talks to the first

An ending is often read not on its own but together with the opening. The framing ending Smith describes for poetry signals closure by bringing an image from the opening back in a different state. In fiction the same possibility is to repeat, in the last scene, an action from the first; the difference shows, without telling, what has changed in the character. We discussed this technique, with the same morning written twice, in [What Is a Character Arc?](https://leventbulut.com/what-is-a-character-arc/) The question of where to begin a story we discussed in [Where to Start a Story: In Medias Res](https://leventbulut.com/where-to-start-a-story-in-medias-res/); the information an opening postpones often finds its answer in the ending.

## Where telling the ending works

The Emotion Embargo is not defended as a universal rule, and endings are one of its clearest limits. In the last chapter of *Pride and Prejudice*, Jane Austen gives the characters' later lives in a narrator's summary, and that summary names feelings too. The summary is not a flaw: the ironic narrating voice built throughout the novel returns in the last chapter as a form of farewell to the reader. We discussed Austen's narrator and free indirect discourse in [Jane Austen](https://leventbulut.com/jane-austen-show-dont-tell-free-indirect-discourse/). O. Henry, too, ends “The Gift of the Magi” with the narrator's comment on giving gifts.

In these examples the final sentences name a feeling or a judgement, but they do so after the story's events have been presented to the reader. What is told does not replace what was shown; it comes on top of it. The problem with the first ending in our example is that the emotion name gives the reader, in advance, something the reader could have built alone.

## Four common problems with endings

- **The resolution from outside:** the problem is solved by a force or coincidence never seen earlier in the story. Aristotle's criticism of the deus ex machina describes this case.
- **Not open, but unfinished:** the story stops without ever setting up its main question. If the reader does not know what was left open, the ending can read as missing rather than open.
- **The final paragraph that states the lesson:** the last paragraph summarizes what the story has already shown. This is what the first ending in our example does.
- **The twist that becomes a trick:** the clues to the twist were never given; instead of making the earlier pages read differently, the ending cancels them.

## What the doctrine cannot say here

- It cannot say that an open or a closed ending satisfies readers more. The three endings in the example were not compared with readers.
- It cannot say that an ending that shows the emotion is more effective than one that names it; this is an untested writing suggestion.
- It cannot say that readers will read the clues of an open ending the way the writer intended.
- It cannot say that the four types of ending cover all stories; the table is a classification prepared for this article.
- It cannot claim that Aristotle, Chekhov, Stockton or O. Henry worked with a method similar to Objective Projection. The resemblance is a retrospective reading.

## Limitations

This article presents the views of Aristotle, Smith and Kermode, and Chekhov's letter, through secondary sources and summaries; the works were not examined in detail. No passages were quoted from the works or the letter; events and views were summarized. The distinction between the plot story and the situation story is one widely used in school textbooks, not a strict genre boundary. The table comparing four types of ending and the table separating the two questions were prepared for this article. The example story and its three endings were written for this article and were not tested with readers. The concepts and sources of the doctrine are listed in the knowledge graph of [Levent Bulut](https://leventbulut.com/graph/), and the published works on the corpus page of [Levent Bulut](https://leventbulut.com/corpus/).

## Frequently Asked Questions

### What is an open ending?

An open ending is one in which the story clearly poses its main question but ends without answering it. The answer is left to the reader. The most frequently cited example is Frank R. Stockton's 1882 story, which ends without saying whether a tiger or a young woman came out of the door the young man opened.

### What is a closed ending?

A closed ending is one in which the main question of the story is answered and the reader is told where the characters have arrived. In the exposition, complication and resolution plan taught in schools, the resolution is where curiosity is brought to an outcome.

### How do you end a story?

There is no fixed rule. For Aristotle, the resolution should arise from the story itself rather than from an intervention from outside. For an open ending, Chekhov's distinction can guide the writer: a story may leave the problem unsolved, but it should pose the question correctly.

### What is the difference between an open ending and an unfinished one?

In an open ending the reader knows what has been left open, and the story has prepared the possible answers in advance. In an unfinished ending the main question was never set up; the reader cannot even tell what remains unanswered.

### How do you write a twist ending?

The clues to a twist ending should already be in the text. A good twist ending asks the reader to reread what came before; in O. Henry's “The Gift of the Magi”, the two gifts cancelling each other out is a well-known example.

## References

- Aristotle. *Poetics*. Turkish trans. İsmail Tunalı, *Poetika*. Remzi Kitabevi, 1999.
- Austen, J. (1813). *Pride and Prejudice*. T. Egerton.
- Chekhov, A. P. Letter to Alexei Suvorin, 27 October 1888\. English trans.: *Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends*, trans. C. Garnett.
- Henry, O. (1905). Gifts of the Magi. *The New York Sunday World*, 10 December 1905\. In book form: *The Four Million*, 1906.
- Kermode, F. (1967). *The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction*. Oxford University Press.
- Smith, B. H. (1968). *Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End*. University of Chicago Press.
- Stockton, F. R. (1882). The Lady, or the Tiger? *The Century*.

## Citation

```
@misc{bulut2026endingen,
  author       = {Bulut, Levent},
  title        = {How to End a Story: Open and Closed Endings, with Examples},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://leventbulut.com/how-to-end-a-story-open-ending/}},
  note         = {leventbulut.com}
}
```