A resonant ending

 This week I've tackled the ending of the novel I'm re-writing, and it's turned out a little different than I originally planned.  

I knew I'd be re-using the scenes I'd created for the original manuscript.  The two big ones consist of destroying a complex of buildings where evil has taken place, and burning a book where details of that evil have been recorded.

I did re-use those scenes, but I beefed them up a lot. In the original manuscript my weakness for omitting character emotions really showed.  Yes, they did react to the scene, but the writing didn't show the anger and despair and trauma which some of the characters were experiencing.  It had the feel of an uninvolved bystander calmly reporting on the action.

So one of the things I needed to do in the rewrite was strengthen every character's emotional reactions to what they're witnessing,  As part of that I added a new scene where one character is viewing the secret office where the book they're about to destroy was kept.  That allowed me to get the characters to comment on - and rage about - the sheer inhumanity of someone who would neatly record the details of repeated atrocities which he's committed.  He did so with fountain pen and ink, in a book specially made for that purpose.  I've tried to show the obscenity of that, and added in some swearing too.

Then, in the book burning scene, my description of the women witnessing this have been strengthened.  Now I talk of the rage on one woman's face, the waver in her voice as she announces her intention to burn this evil, the savage jab of her torch into the pyre to set it alight.

 That's one way I've added more resonance to the ending, but there's another ending going. on too, an internal debate in the heads of the two main characters,  As the story progressed, it emerged that they're both much older than I'd originally thought.  Now they've spent decades uncovering and investigating atrocities, and intervening to stop evil deeds.  And they're both burned out and emotionally traumatised by the bad things they've seen.  So my ending added a second strand dealing with this issue too.

Half way through the book both main characters have decided that they've had enough, and they're planning on retiring at the end of this mission.  But the events at the end of the book make them reconsider, and they stay on.  I partly wanted this so they were around for a second book, as I plan to make this into a duology, but it also made for a messier ending which better reflected reality.

I've wrapped up the main threads of the story, but I've left the question of whether my two main characters will retire dangling.   The two main villains still haven't been found, and I'll pick up that thread in the second book.  I'm happy with the ending I've got now.  I think it has enough emotional resonance and closes out the main action of the book, yet leaves enough threads dangling for book two.