on Fiction University:

We now come to the final installment of the annual NaNo prep articles. Hope everyone going for the 50,000 words in November are just about ready to go!

Getting to “The End” of a novel is pretty satisfying, both as a reader and a writer, but there’s a lot more pressure to get there for the writer. There are many things that need to happen–plots and subplots to wrap up, and those pesky character arcs to fulfill. And then there’s the whole “satisfying resolution” to worry about.

The ending is the last 25% of the novel, so for the NaNo folks, to meet your 50,000-word goal, that’s another 12,500 words. At least one of those final chapters is going to be your wrap up, though that can be a much smaller chapter. There’s a good chance that you won’t know all the specifics about your ending in the planning stage, so don’t worry. Ideas and situations will develop over the course of the novel that will help you flesh the ending out. Even if you do know exactly how the ending will unfold, you might find deeper meanings or ways to make it resonate more once that first draft is written.