I think a lot about endings. I think most writers must think about endings a lot, so I don’t think this makes me particularly special, but over the last ten years or so, since I started to write seriously, my thoughts on endings have solidified into what I would consider a relatively objective assessment of a very subjective topic.
What do I mean by that? Well, let’s see … let’s start with an example. I REALLY didn’t like the ending of No Country for Old Men. It was a huge financial, critical, and audience success. I mean, it won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2008 (not necessarily a ringing endorsement, personally, but it is suitable here for context), it also won more than one hundred other major awards … so, I guess we can say it was successful. I can also objectively admit that it was well-written, well-made, and well-acted.
So why did I, a person who considers himself at least moderately sophisticated when it comes to the kinds of stories I enjoy, HATE that ending?
*****Spoiler Warning For A 15 Year Old Movie*****
In part, it stems from the fact that I am a big fan of the traditional melodramatic structure: I like it when the bad guy gets punished, when the good guy wins, and the world is, at the conclusion of the story, either returned to its original state or in even better condition than when the story started.
Coincidentally, traditional farcical structure, which I also thoroughly enjoy, does almost the same thing: Normal people are overtaken by silly events, which causes them to act silly in response, but in the end, things are all ok.
And I am unapologetic regarding my desire for entertainment that ‘ends well’. If Shakespeare can talk about it 500 years ago, I’m in good company.
So why didn’t I like the ending to No Country for Old Men? Was it all the death? The ultimate failure of the ‘good guy’? The ambivalent success of the ‘bad guy’?
Those are easy answers, but I don’t think they really address the issue. I have LOVED movies where the ‘good guy’ died or the ‘bad guy’ won… Braveheart, 300, Gladiator, and Saving Private Ryan just to name a few.
I don’t need for the good guy to win, or even to survive, in order to be satisfied with the ending. But what makes movies like No Country for Old Men, or The Departed (winner of the 2007 Best Picture Oscar, by-the-by), for that matter, unsatisfying, while those other stories, while reducing me to a sobbing wreck, were great?
A few years ago, pondering this very question in an idle moment, I realized there MUST be an objective structure within stories that, all other things being equal, lead to a satisfying ending. And then, further picking at that thought, I began to wonder if this structure could be expressed in the form of a mathematical equation.
I’ve never been able to nail down specific numbers (so maybe the answer was no?), there are two many variables. But I stand by the basic idea. And having streamlined the theory, I have come up with a way to express it:
Evil done by ‘bad guy’ = Price paid by ‘bad guy’ + Reward or Success of ‘good guy’
Every time the ‘bad guy’ does anything that impacts the audience in a negative way: anger, sadness, frustration, etc; an emotional deficit is established with the audience.
By the end of the story that deficit must be addressed in order for the audience to feel satisfied. It can be addressed in many different ways, from punishment to failure to commensurate success or reward of the ‘good guy’.
But if the deficit established through the movie is NOT addressed sufficiently, the audience will be left dissatisfied.
Obviously this is an attempt to force an objective formula over a very subjective experience, but I’ve got enough faith in my ability to grasp an audience after 35 years of producing plays, being in plays, and writing stories/scripts/novels etc., that I’m fairly confident this structure would hold true for most audiences in most circumstances.
So, why does No Country for Old Men not satisfy me? Well, you’ve got Chigurh (Javier Bardem) the hitman wantonly killing innocent people throughout the film including the ‘hunter-in-over-his-head Moss (Josh Brolin) who ‘made-a-bad-choice’, and his wife (although that murder takes place off screen). For that he is wounded several times, limping off into the sunset at the end of the film while Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), having failed to catch the bad guy or save the ‘everyman’ ‘good guy’, retires, feeling old and useless.
That is a MASSIVE emotional deficit for the audience to carry, with nearly no compensating narrative aside from constant serious injury of the ‘bad guy’ as a pay-off.
And what about one of those stories, with a similar plot arc, that I DID find satisfying?
Braveheart:
King Edward of England (Patrick McGoohan) invades Scotland, kills a bunch of nobles including William Wallace (Mel Gibson)’s father and brother, and then gives the land to a bunch of rapacious, murderous nobles, one of whom kills his wife (Catherine McCormack) and ultimately executes Wallace by nearly hanging him and then pulling out his entrails before a riotous crowd. That’s a lot of deficit, including, again, the death of the good guy (I refuse to put subjective scare quotes around that for William Wallace). So what is the audience offered in compensation? King Edward dies miserable and infirm, being assured by his daughter-in-law (Sophie Marceau) that his son, Prince Edward (Peter Hanly) will die young and be replaced with the son she is carrying, who happens to be the illegitimate child of William Wallace. And in Scotland, Robert the Bruce (Angus Macfadyen), inspired by Wallace’s sacrifice and courage, leads a rebellion against the English crown and wins Scotland her freedom. And if that’s not enough, as he lies dying in the public square, Wallace turns his head and sees his dead wife walking through the crowd, giving him a reassuring smile…
Now THAT was an ending!
What does this mean to writers? Probably not much. We follow our muse and tell the stories that occur to us in the moment. But it IS something I try to keep in mind when I’m writing. If I have a ‘bad guy’, I review the emotional deficit I’m saddling my readers with, and what compensation I’m offering them in return. The trickiest venue for this is with game-based genre fiction that features ‘special characters’, where you’re not generally ‘allowed’ to impose any kind of permanent punishment on them. How do you make a REALLY bad bad guy pay for his crimes if, by the end of the book, he has to be in the same state you’ll find him in the rulebook?
It’s tricky, but it can be done. Maybe that’s a good topic for another post?
Anyway, there you have it: my mathematical equation for audience satisfaction.
Now go out there and write!
~Craig
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