endings – The Story Department https://www.thestorydepartment.com Story. Screenplay. Sale. Fri, 28 Aug 2015 03:50:55 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.thestorydepartment.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/cropped-fav-32x32.png endings – The Story Department https://www.thestorydepartment.com 32 32 2808072 The End. https://www.thestorydepartment.com/screenwriting-the-end/ https://www.thestorydepartment.com/screenwriting-the-end/#comments Mon, 06 Jan 2014 22:33:53 +0000 https://thestorydepartment.com/?p=30786 Read more]]> The last thing someone remembers when they finish watching a movie is the ending. It can make or break every moment of screen time that happened before.

by Jamie Campbell

Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for American Hustle, Titanic, and the Divergent Series. If you don’t know how these end and don’t wish to, please do not read ahead.

I recently saw American Hustle and it was a great movie. The casting, the look, the story, it was all enjoyable. The only thing that marred it for me was the ending. Which made me think how important it is to have a satisfying conclusion to a story.

In American Hustle, the FBI agent played by Bradley Cooper doesn’t get his happy ending. He blows the case and is fooledbusinessman with megaphone by the other characters (Christian Bale and Amy Adams). It didn’t seem right, considering he was so invested in the case outcome.

But do you really need to have a happy ending for each story? I’m a sucker for them, I’ll admit it. Unless everything is tied up in a neat little bow, I get a little grumpy. I don’t think I’m the only one who feels like that (Neat bow lovers, unite!).

But do you really need to have a happy ending for each story?

I recently read the Divergent series by Veronica Roth. The trilogy ended with Allegiant and was subsequently hated on by fans of the series (for some sadistic fun, check out the reviews on Amazon for the book, you will have a whole new concept for the term mean).

The reason fans were angry/upset/hurt/robbed? Roth killed off the main character in the end. The girl who had narrated for close to three books was dead. Gone. Never to return. She had made us fall in love with the character, cheer for her, and then she didn’t get a happily ever after. It felt like I had lost a friend.

Brave, or wrong? There are arguments for both sides. Do you stay true to the story you want to tell, or do you err on the side of caution and give the audience what they want? Can you ever really know what an audience wants?

Look at James Cameron’s Titanic. It broke so many records at the time for its box office takings and award nominations. Nobody seemed to care that one of the main characters died. It was true to the story and seemed to go by unnoticed. Even for someone like me who doesn’t like sad endings. I thought it was a shame Jack died, but I understood why and it made sense to the story.

Brave, or wrong? There are arguments for both sides.

titanicI’m currently working on a contained thriller and was talking to Karel about it a few months ago. My original plan was to kill off the main character in the end. However, Karel asked me what other thriller ended with the protagonist not surviving. I was stumped, I couldn’t think of one.

Then I thought about how I would feel if I had been cheering for the protagonist for an hour and a half only to have her die at the hands of the killer after everything she had worked for. I wouldn’t be happy. I would probably feel like she was robbed, considering how hard she fought to stay alive.

So the ending is a tricky thing in screenwriting, no matter how you look at it. Good or bad, I think it is important the audience feels something. If they are angry because you killed off the main character, then you have done a great job in getting the audience invested in that character. A worse situation would be if you killed someone off and nobody cared.

Be true to your characters, tell the story you want to tell. Just remember to give it a lot of thought and make sure you have a reason for every action. Otherwise, people will leave the cinema shrugging.

-Jamie Campbell

]]> https://www.thestorydepartment.com/screenwriting-the-end/feed/ 1 30786 Best of the Web 15 Jul https://www.thestorydepartment.com/best-of-the-web-15-jul/ https://www.thestorydepartment.com/best-of-the-web-15-jul/#respond Sun, 15 Jul 2012 00:00:03 +0000 https://thestorydepartment.com/?p=24158 Read more]]> Story & Structure

:: Character Breakdown
:: Bad TV Teaches Lessons
:: What is ‘Voice’?
:: Creating Memorable Characters
:: Don’t Leave Your Ending to the End
:: How to Write an Omniscient Narrator

Script Perfection

:: Embrace Your Inner Weirdo
:: Writers Diet Test. Is Your Sentence Construction Flabby or Fit?
:: 7 Essential Habits for Writers
:: Screenplay Formatting
:: A Guide to Scriptwriting Essentials
:: Your Moral Vision

Pitching & Selling

:: How to Write a Better Logline
:: Receiving Screenwriting Notes
:: Why 2nd Best Isn’t Good Enough
:: Tips for Subbing to Mags
:: Don’t Forget to get Your Screenplay Reviewed!
:: Script Feedback Advice

Best of the Rest

:: 10 of the Most Powerful Female Characters in Literature
:: The Geographic and Chronological Layout of Middle Earth
:: A New Trailer for DreamWorks’ Rise of the Guardians
:: Actors: How to Give Notes to Writers
:: An Amazing Behind-The-Scenes Look at the Animation Behind John Carter
:: The Treatment – Interviews with Industry Bigshots
:: Tim Burton Brings us a Story Form His Own High-School Nightmares
:: John Cleese talks Creativity
:: 5 Tips for Directing Children
:: Ethereal New Banner for The Hobbit
:: A Pedantic Take on the Physics of The Hulk
:: The Dark Knight Rises Wows Fans at Early Screening
_______________________________

With thanks to Jamie C. and Brooke Trezise.

Enjoy!

Karel

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