Ending ties up too many loose ends!?!?!? Huh?

Maybe she meant that it felt like the loose ends were tied up too quickly or that their conclusions weren't developed enough? Give it a week or so to think about, then read over your last two chapters to see what you think. Has anyone else commented on that? If not, I wouldn't worry about it. Some people just really don't like it when a book feels like it ends too neatly or too easily.

Sometimes we're so busy making sure all the loose ends are tied up that we're inclined to rush them all in at the end. Maybe that's what your beta is talking about?

Is there anyway you could spread some of them out over previous chapters, just keep the biggies till the last few chapters?

Maybe she's used to reading series books, where not all loose ends are tied, so she expected there to be one or two things still up in the air?

Maybe they like a few things to be up for interpretation?

I like when the author doesn't answer ALL the questions and I can speculate on a few points.

Forbidden Snowflake said:

I like when the author doesn't answer ALL the questions and I can speculate on a few points.

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Ditto. The major conflict needs resolution, but it's okay to leave other questions open. Everytime I think about disappointing endings, a fantasy book I read years ago comes to mind (I can't remember the title or author). The author spent tons of time fleshing out the world and the characters, with a slow but interesting build-up. Then in the last chapter, it was basically, "Okay, our traveling group is assembled and we're setting off to defeat Big, Bad Evil. Soon, Minor Character A dies, then a page later, Minor Character B is left behind, and so on in quick succession, until only the MC is left to face Big Bad on her own. A skimpy 'epic' fight later (leaving MC slightly battered but nothing that can't be healed with a Band-Aid), and everyone lived happily ever after."
It made me think the author plays a ton of quest-centric video games, they were under a tight deadline and just needed to wrap something up, and/or they simply couldn't think of something more interesting. Who knows, maybe they had some elaborate ending and the publisher made them chop it off for wordcount.
Life rarely (never?) ends up resolved neatly. Just as one problem is conquered, another one pops up. They don't have to be major, but resolving everything in one neat little swoop creates a manufactured sensation (maybe even Deus Ex Machina) which, unless it's a stylistic choice, is probably not what you want.

There are also some books that overexplain every little detail in the end to wrap up all the threads. That drives me batty sometimes.

Perhaps the degree to which everything was suddenly resolved felt forced and unnatural? Like the last 5 minutes of a sitcom.

I recently read a book that I liked, but I felt that way about the ending.

The character gets himself into some pretty big political, personal, and emotional problems. And you think, how in the world will he solve all of this?

So he goes through all this stuff and at the end, basically passes out. When he wakes up, he finds out he won that immediate (main conflict). Then he asks, "Oh, wait, what about this other thing that was a problem?" And the people around him tell him, "Oh, someone else solved that while you were asleep!" And then he asks about another thing that was a big problem, and someone says, "Oh, turns out that was never actually a problem!" So everything gets resolved while he's unconscious and sort of just magically works out for him, all nice and tidy.

Everything was wrapped up, no loose ends, no nagging questions, no plot holes, but it wasn't really satisfying or believable. It was all a little too convenient.

heza said:

I recently read a book that I liked, but I felt that way about the ending.

The character gets himself into some pretty big political, personal, and emotional problems. And you think, how in the world will he solve all of this?

So he goes through all this stuff and at the end, basically passes out. When he wakes up, he finds out he won that immediate (main conflict). Then he asks, "Oh, wait, what about this other thing that was a problem?" And the people around him tell him, "Oh, someone else solved that while you were asleep!" And then he asks about another thing that was a big problem, and someone says, "Oh, turns out that was never actually a problem!" So everything gets resolved while he's unconscious and sort of just magically works out for him, all nice and tidy.

Everything was wrapped up, no loose ends, no nagging questions, no plot holes, but it wasn't really satisfying or believable. It was all a little too convenient.

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Yeah. Let me paraphrase this by saying that I HATE open endings. I first started reading YA in earnest around 2010-ish, and there seemed to be a real trend, in what contemporary YA was published, to have...no ending. The narrative would build to one or two events, maybe a climactic act of violence or a revelation, and then -- that'd be it. They would almost always feel intentionally abrupt and ambiguous, and I grew to really hate them. Bitter 15/16-year-old me assumed that they were that way because the author couldn't be bothered to commit themselves to a 'proper' conclusive ending.

However, with me, this criticism can mean one of two things -
1. The resolution wasn't convincing (i.e. your MC's main conflict is a love triangle! They go backwards and forwards throughout unable to know which paramour to choose. Then, suddenly, conveniently, LI #1 starts behaving totally out of character. They break up, love triangle concluded, HEA. Or you tied up things that didn't realistically feel like they could be within the 'real' world, e.g. giving your MC a near-death experience to restore their faith in God.)
or 2. The pacing was off. I've read a few books where, rather than feeling climactic, it's like the writer suddenly realised they were getting near the end approximately 30 pages from it, and so suddenly kicked it into high gear, solving the mystery, kicking ass and kissing their LI so fast that I have whiplash.

This is just what I could mean from that. Your own beta might mean something different. Why not ask for more detail?

I get this. Your beta probably meant that the ending felt rushed and forced. I HATE this as well. Obvious endings that pull out the broom and sweep everything up into a neat little stack. It feels fake when this happens. If the reader gets lost in the story and how real it feels, sometimes an ending like this can feel like slamming on the imagination brakes.