So you've done your job as a writer, you've created a story world with logical rules and you've created rich, fully-developed characters to inhabit that world. You've set up a problem / opportunity and escalated conflict through the story. You've created a satisfying climax that does everything the audience expects and now... now what?
After the climax, you have a period of falling action and resolution. Falling action is where you wrap up any loose ends. Did the protagonist treat someone badly along the way? This is where they kiss and make up.
This is also where you have an opportunity to reward the audience by giving them what they've wanted for most of the movie. Has there been a romantic interest that eluded the protagonist throughout rising action and climax? Now is when that romantic interest can be swept off their feet.
There's a line in a movie—I don't remember the movie at all, except for this line— where the protagonist goes out of his way to do something good for a secondary character, and when asked why he would do it, he replied, "Because sometimes people have to have their faith rewarded." It was a powerful moment in the film but also illustrates a powerful concept for writers.
Audiences have faith that everything is going to work out in the end. Even if you're planning a sad ending, your audience will appreciate it if you take the time to reward their faith. Give them a reason to hold out hope in the earlier stages of the story—then reward that during the falling action and resolution.
Resolution is the bow you put on the end of the movie. It's the final image or final sequence, the memory the audience walks way with. If you want to leave the door open for a sequel, this is where you tease about the next adventure.
The most important thing about your resolution is providing a sense of continuity and life for the story world that extends after the credits are over.
Think about some popular cliche endings:
The cowboy riding off into the sunset. The lovers riding off in a carriage to their honeymoon. The haunted house glowering on the hillside, waiting for its next victim.
These resolutions all provide the promise that life exists for these characters and this world even after the movie is finished.
The resolution can be a nod and a wink or it can be somber and serious. It simply needs to provide closure for your audience. Most of the time, this is a feel-good moment that sends the audience or the doors with a smile on their face. Psychologically, the audience needs to know that it's okay to disengage from this world and leave.
Even if you plan to end with a cliffhanger, there needs to be a sense of resolution at the end of your story. There needs to be this sense that continuity will happen. The best cliffhangers don't abruptly stop the story, they merely end a complete story arc with a bit of unresolved action so that audiences are wanting more.
Say you have a story and you want to end it as a cliffhanger. Let's say you provide no climax, no sense of resolution— you simply stop the story at a crucial moment and expect the audience to come back. What's happens is, the audience feels cheated out of the experience they expected. They may not come back. The second movie may never get made.
A good cliffhanger is a twist that happens after the main story is told. Episodic TV does this all the time. And, even with a cliffhanger, you must provide your audience with a sense of resolution. It's your job, after all. Be good at it.
- The Illiterate Writer
No comments:
Post a Comment