Find the end of your string using strlen, for example, then assign a null character.
int string_length = 0;
char my_string[] = {"boat"};
printf("%s\n", my_string);
/* outputs boat */
string_length = strlen(my_string);
/*string_length equals 4*/
my_string[3] = '\0';
/*insert null character at the end of the string*/
printf("%s\n", my_string);
/* outputs boa */