Aside from chapters, a novel will sometimes include a prologue and an epilogue. The prologue, naturally, goes at the front of the book and the epilogue fits at the back. When I was a child, I remember reading books like this and wondering what on earth the point of a prologue and epilogue was. I began skipping them soon afterward.
 
In response to the child me, I have now developed a particular way of writing prologues and epilogues, which may or may not be helpful to you.
 
1. Make sure the prologue and epilogue contain extraneous information.I never worry about putting anything strictly necessary in the prologue or epilogue of a book. I select information carefully, making sure that it is hooking, but ensuring that anything essential will be repeated within the bulk of the story. Just in case a reader like the younger me is reading the book, and the prologue or epilogue winds up being skipped.
 
2. Do one or the other.I typically don’t do both a prologue and an epilogue, because sometimes this feels like too much “extra stuff”. Of course, other authors may do it differently.
 
3. Make it extraordinarily hooking or intriguing.I am deliberately outrageous or provoking in my prologues and epilogues. I either write something particularly quirky or something horribly hooking. I enjoy inserting an epilogue at the end of my books, which includes a cliff hanger. My reader may choose to skip it (and it will probably be to their advantage to do so). But if they decide to read it, they become hooked and begin asking about the next book. It’s a win-win situation.
 
4. Don’t use the title prologue or epilogue.This is a strategy I’ve employed occasionally. If the book is for a younger audience or any audience that might be scared of a word ending in “logue”, I name the prologue or epilogue something completely different. For instance, in an urban fantasy book I’m working on, I headed it up “On Monsters”, which is always much more interesting than the word “prologue”. 

In the past couple of weeks, I have written about beginning chapters and how to divide chapters. It makes sense to go from there to discussing the final chapter in a novel. I used to love ending the final chapters in my novels on cliff hangers, because I never saw myself writing anything except series’. Nowadays, I save the cliff hangers for the epilogues.

Several things are necessary for a successful last chapter.

1. The most important loose ends need to be tied up. Your readers will want to know what happened to that mysterious family member, whether the villain was killed in that final fight or whether he got away, and how those fighting his forces fared. They will want to know how people are planning to go back to normal or whether they will now have a new normal – and a new normal, a new life, is infinitely more satisfying after an adventure. Nobody wants to read a book where the characters finish exactly where they started. Smaller loose ends can remain mysterious if you plan to continue the series. If you don’t, sometimes you can leave the reader to join a few dots. The main thing is, don’t leave them dissatisfied.

2. A resolution needs to be found. Even in an ongoing series, I try to find some sort of resolution for my main characters in the final chapters of my novels. Perhaps they have grown in a way that they were trying to all book. Perhaps they at last have a family or security in some way. Even if other things are looking bleak, there should still be some sort of denouement for the hero – something that leaves the reader feeling like something has been achieved… unless your goal really is to write an abject tragedy.

3. The main character needs to have grown. This especially needs to be evident in the last chapter of the book. How has the main character changed? How did answering the call to adventure affect them in the end? How are they now a better character than before? At this point, you reader should respect them and aspire to be like them… not because they started perfect, but because they had the ability to change and grow.

​And this should be the most satisfying point of the book.