“The end is the beginning”

I’ve been a fan of The Writers Store since they had that tiny little showroom on Santa Monica Blvd near the Nuart Theater in west LA. They’ve since moved to a much bigger location on Westwood Blvd, but more important over time The Writers Store has become a strong presence on the Web. In fact, their website is chock full of articles and essays by an ever-increasing roster of ‘screenwriting gurus.’ They even have a free ezine which you can sign up for on their home webpage.

Here’s an example of the type of articles they feature: “The End is the Beginning”, written by Martha Alderson, M.A.. Alderson raises an interesting set of questions:

Before a writer can lay the groundwork about the character and the situation to build to a climax in a way that makes the highest point of the story seem both inevitable and surprising, doesn’t the writer first need to know the climax? At what point do we surrender our idea of the story and our will, and let the story have its head?

With my students, I push them to know their ending before they start the page-writing process and for a simple reason: Their chances of actually getting to FADE OUT increase exponentially if they know the story’s climax. When you forge into the middle of the story and get lost, which is almost inevitable in any writing process, if you have a clear vision of the ending, that can be your guide through the ‘darkness’ of uncertainty — just keep aiming for the end. Or as Alderson suggests:

The Climax serves as the light at the end of the tunnel. In the final quarter of the work, the protagonist moves toward the light — one step forward toward the ultimate transformation, three steps back, a fight for a couple of steps, being beat backwards.

The Climax spotlights the character as she comes into full transformation and demonstrates full mastery of the necessary new skill or personality, gift or action.

I especially like this point Alderson makes:

While writing and rewriting the final quarter of the story and the climax itself, a writer looks hard at the meaning of things. An exploration of deep-rooted ideas for the fundamental meaning of events reveals thematic significance, which in turn dictates the final layer in the selection and organization, nuances, and details of the story.

Which means the story’s ending can not only be a “light at the end of the tunnel,” but also a set of events that defines, even re-shapes our understanding of the Protagonist’s journey, even the entire story itself.

Of course, if the only takeaway you get from this article is the T.S. Eliot quote, then that’s worth the price of admission (free!):

“The end is the beginning.”

UPDATE: In comments, Nicholas discussed the process of writing his latest script, how it forced him to re-envision the ending, taking a “riskier” approach. Then Nicholas asked, “Scott, do you agree that it is good to take risks like this? And if so, where does it become too risky?”

First, let me answer theoretically: One of the single most important goals a writer has is to follow their story where it leads them. That requires an enormous amount of faith on the part of the writer, but that’s where that mantra comes in: “Trust the process.” The whole idea of “go into the story” is precisely about feeding that creative process, the writer immersing him/herself in the story universe and with the characters, trusting them to lead you where the story needs to go.

Which leads me to a more practical response: Judging from what you describe, you did that! Look at your own language:

I realized very early on exactly what the final scene would be, though. I knew I had to kill off my protagonist in the final shot. It was a decision I was very uncomfortable with at first, but it seemed like the most natural way to end it.

And once I knew that, I was able to create a wonderful discourse on death and happiness. As a result, none of my main characters became safe. And now, because of the time travel element, each of them dies twice. And it is all this death that horrifies my protagonist, and make him terrified of dying. So the film eventually becomes about him learning to accept death just in time for him to die himself in peace.

You should print out those two paragraphs and keep them somewhere in view at your writing station because they serve as vindication for taking the risk to go deeply into the story. Look at all the ramifications that occurred in your story by changing the ending: “none of my characters became safe.” That right there suggests that the story has elevated in intensity who knows how much, making it a more compelling read. So in the future if you run up against the prospect of going into a too-risky aspect of a story, refer back to these two paragraphs. Your ‘trust’ worked before. No reason it shouldn’t work again.

I’ve mentioned this before on the blog, but Robert Towne (Chinatown) said that one of the best ways to get at the core of a character is to determine what scares them the most, what are they most afraid of. If a writer has to be willing to go there on behalf of their characters, then it stands to reason that we must be willing to risk going into the darkest places of who we are — in service to the creative process — even if we’re afraid of what we might find. 

Finally, I asked my friend Kurt Brown, a poet, if he could recommend a poem about death. He wrote back, “Scott, all poems are about death.” I presume we can say that about all stories. Death is scary. But death has a unique way of defining life. In a way, I suppose it’s fair to say that death is a writer’s best friend.

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