Page:How to write a Short Story.djvu/59

 CONCLUSION AND CLIMAX

your story is ended, stop. Don't ramble on and tell how the man built a magnificent home and how the two turtle doves lived there for years and years. Lead your reader up to the engagement and drop the curtain abruptly on the scene of bliss. The chances are that later a flurry in stocks swallowed up all the man's wealth and that the white hands of the girl turned brown and chapped over the wash board. But if you stop at the proper place, your reader will never think of the possibility of such things.

If you tack on a remark after your story is ended, it will ruin it all. Amateurs have a habit of closing a love story something like this:

“She looked up at him, with the love