{"id":368,"date":"2012-01-15T14:51:46","date_gmt":"2012-01-15T14:51:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/?p=368"},"modified":"2024-12-09T16:37:23","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T16:37:23","slug":"writing-the-perfect-ending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/writing-the-perfect-ending\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing the Perfect Ending"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yep, they can make it \u2013 and they can break it!\u00a0 In one fell swoop you have to tie-up any loose ends and satisfy an audience\u2019s expectation.\u00a0 Not an easy task, right?\u00a0 Absolutely not.\u00a0 In fact, as a working screenwriter I have found writing a satisfying ending to be one of the hardest parts of the creative writing<\/a> process.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, I can write endings.\u00a0 I can write all types of endings.\u00a0 Endings with a final climactic showdown between the hero and villain.\u00a0 Endings with a witty line that leaves the audience with a smile.\u00a0 Endings with a sad yet uplifting tone.\u00a0 I can write endings in my sleep.. but that doesn\u2019t mean they are always going to be the best ending for the story.\u00a0 Perfection is hard to attain.\u00a0 We all try to create the perfect scene, the perfect witty banter, the perfect character arc and the perfect ending, but linking all of this together is complicated.\u00a0 We have to fulfill expectations on so many levels and at the same time make it original and entertaining.<\/p>\n

And things get even more difficult when you\u2019re trying to please a producer, director and development executive because everybody has their own ideas of what needs to transpire in the closing moments of your movie.. which by that point is technically \u201ctheir\u201d movie or optimistically \u201cour\u201d movie.\u00a0 The best advice is to keep it real and inevitable.\u00a0 Don’t just tag on a twist you haven’t set up.\u00a0 An ending needs to evolve naturally.\u00a0 To be organic.<\/p>\n

If you can create an a) original ending that b) entertains but more crucially c) resolves the central character\u2019s journey, d) hints at the theme and e) either makes you laugh, cry or leaves you wanting more then you are onto a winner.\u00a0 The feeling an audience needs to walk out of the movie theater with is one of \u201csatisfaction\u201d.\u00a0 Sure, they may argue about who killed who, what that blue ornament on the mantelpiece represented, and why the director filmed it in Seattle rather than London, but ultimately they need to feel intellectually content with the resolution that was presented to them.<\/p>\n

I hate movies that either give us a predictable ending (lazy screenwriting<\/a> and filmmaking) or shove a truck load of exposition down our throats just to explain the plot.\u00a0 If it\u2019s that complicated then the writer has made some poor decisions somewhere down the line.\u00a0 If you need to telegraph to the audience that the hero or heroine has changed, through dialogue or a clunky visual device, then that\u2019s equally as irritating.<\/p>\n

The best endings just \u201cfeel right\u201d when you write them and watch them.\u00a0 They may sometimes surprise you, not necessarily out of an intentional creative choice by the writer, but by the script itself which by the end of the story should have a life of its own.\u00a0 Like putting that final piece of the puzzle into place and then stepping back to take it all in for the first time, an effective ending completes the picture.\u00a0 And endings, like that final piece, should never need to be forced into position.. they should just slip into place as if they were always destined to be there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yep, they can make it \u2013 and they can break it!\u00a0 In one fell swoop you have to tie-up any loose ends and satisfy an audience\u2019s expectation.\u00a0 Not an easy task, right?\u00a0 Absolutely not.\u00a0 In fact, as a working screenwriter I have found writing a satisfying ending to be one of the hardest parts of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[207,206,111,219,23,217,216,117,222,134,220,102,218,11,221,118,86],"class_list":["post-368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dan-bronzites-script-tips","tag-act-3","tag-act-three","tag-character-arc","tag-climax","tag-creative-writing","tag-denouement","tag-ending","tag-hero","tag-movie-climax","tag-movie-writing","tag-original-ending","tag-plot","tag-resolution","tag-screenwriting","tag-showdown","tag-villain","tag-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":650,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions\/650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}