How do I avoid ending this with a sequel hook?

So, here are the salient points you need to know about the adaptation: The main character is a retired secret agent type. Some people he's crossed have been out to get him for years. He's been stealthily teaching his wife some skills he'd picked up for a while, and the last time his enemies caught up to him, he was forced to tell his wife his backstory, so that makes him a lot more open about it.

Not very long afterward, he is murdered by a new conspiracy of which the old enemies are only a part.

The final scene involves the wife gaining information to this effect and swearing that somehow, she'll bring the conspirators to justice.

Most of this adaptation is geared toward people unfamiliar with the original, but I think only people who have read the original will see this as anything but a sequel hook. And whether or not I actually write a sequel - I have considered it, to my shame - I feel the work should stand on its own.

What should I do?

Well, what's wrong with a sequel hook? It's not like you're obliged to make a sequel by it or something.

Well if you don't want a sequel hook then I would suggest against introducing a new faction at the end. If he is to be killed, and it is meant to be the end, then the husband leaves notes for his wife to never touch the skeletons in his closet and she'll never be troubled. And there's no new conspiracy, he is merely killed by his old enemies. It's a sad ending but his wife will go on and is now safe.

How do you not end on a sequel hook? Simple. Don't write one. End the story with the plot threads tied off and tidy, instead of introducing new ones that you can't finish off in the same book.

while i find it fairly easy to avoid sequelhooks nowadays, way back on my old series of stories, i would go for whatever worked best and sequel hooks came in droves. it mostly comes from going for the most appropriate ending you can think of, only to realise after you've already decided you like this particular ending; hey, its a sequel hook.

and thus you slave away for months trying to make a sequel that will do the original justice and then when you're finished youve ended up with yet another sequel hook. well, no matter, another sequel it is. and the cycle of pain repeats untill by some miracle, you manage to tie up all loose ends without introducing new ones.

i wonder if my newfound ability to avoid sequel hooks is because ive changed the type of stories i make?

Breadloaf, the new faction is introduced at the end of act one. And believe me, I've done a lot of damage to the story already - albeit not what I consider the core story - and taking that part out would impinge on the core.

I will consider just having a nice, melancholy wrap-things-up scene as the finale, but if I can't find anything interesting to say, I guess I can do worse than the sequel hook.

Thanks!

Ah, I see. Well you could also turn it into a "twist" I guess (I usually don't prefer doing that myself) where you think it's going to talk about the new conspiracy but he dies and you have a wrap-things-up scene with the wife who doesn't go chasing after these things.

Okay, so what I'm doing is having the fanboyservice moments and, at the end of it, have her realize that she doesn't actually have a realistic chance of taking them on. Because, really, she doesn't, and I probably don't have enough fingers on both hands to hold all the allies she'd require. But she'll do what little she can, then go back into obscurity.

Thematically, it totally works. Her husband's great triumph was as complete as he could reasonably expect it to be, and it made him a marked man for the rest of his life. She doesn't want that for herself, and the family friend, who I'll have talk her out of it, wants it even less.

Feedback is always a good jog to the inspiration. Thanks a bunch to everyone, especially Bread.

edited 5th Jul '11 7:54:01 AM by DomaDoma

Also, just because you wrote a Sequel Hook doesn't mean you have to write a sequel.