by Paul Ashton
is a moment, where they are separated, when he could just give up, walk
away, unable to do any more. But he persists, even though it means coming
away with a fatal wound.
You don’t get a much greater contrast than between the scale of these
two kinds of stories – between quietness and noise, personal story and global
impact, intimate character drama and high-concept action thriller. But
despite the very different worlds, the intensity, power and dramatic impact
of climax and crisis are of equivalent dramatic value in their respective
worlds.
CHANGE
Change is crucial. At least one significant thing must change. If everything
remains the same then the journey is meaningless. Your hero may fail to
prevent the terrible disaster or tragedy that they have fought to avert
throughout, but if something about them or the world around them is
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somehow meaningfully different as a consequence, then it will have been
worth the sacrifice. Fin ultimately chooses not to hide away from the world,
a far cry from his desire to escape at the beginning. Theo ultimately sacri -
fices himself for the sake of humankind, a far cry from his dismissive
cynicism at the beginning.
Despite his anguish at the end and the extremely bleak conclusion
and coda of Chinatown, Jake Gittes has managed to show and realise that
he’s more than just the hackneyed private detective he had allowed himself
to become. He may not recover from what the ending has done to him and
he may not have been able to help Evelyn or her daughter escape, but he is
a better person than he was and he is a better person than just about
anyone else around him at the end.
RESOLUTION
The point where climax and crisis effect a change – an outcome, a culmin -
ating consequence – is the point at which the story reaches a resolution.
Resolution is where the wave has broken and we see a landscape that looks
somehow different – the plateau of a somehow new world that is the conse -
quence of the intensifying peaks and troughs that have gone before.
Don’t mistake ‘resolution’ for a happy ending. The resolution is the
outcome – whether good or bad, happy or sad, fulfilling or unfulfilling for
the characters. Resolution means dramatic satisfaction. It’s the necessity of
all that has gone before. And with resolution comes some form of accept ance.
Whether or not the characters like it, there is a realisation or understand -
ing that this is how it is. Characters may not accept it for long, and the coda
or ‘story beyond’ may be their continued fight against the outcome, but the
resolution is a point of acceptance and acknowledgement that the outcome
in this story as we see it is real.
The resolution for Shaun in This is England is reconciliation with his
mum, and simply being able to talk about the dad/ husband they have both
lost and miss so much without it necessarily provoking a raw, painful,
angry emotion in him.
In Blue/Orange the resolution for sectioned patient Christopher is
that he is discharged but with an anxious sense of how he will cope, while
for his doctor Bruce it is that he has screwed things up by meaning well,
and for consultant Robert it is that he has got his way but not without
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casting something of a shadow over his professionalism. It’s a play about
three people with three intertwined resolutions.
In Hamlet, the resolution is that the truth about Claudius’s guilt
comes out and Hamlet is able to take his revenge; but he, along with
Gertrude and Laertes, will pay with their lives and Denmark will lose a
King, a Queen and a Prince in one fell swoop.
In Moon, the resolution is that although Sam 1 cannot survive, he can
help Sam 2 escape before the ‘repair’ shuttle arrives, so that one clone at
least will live to tell the tale of their manufactured lives.
CONCLUSION
The conclusion is the drawing to a close of the story and it isn’t necessarily
the same thing as the resolution. In This is England it is Shaun’s ‘goodbye’
to his father, as he throws the flag of St George (tainted by his close brush
with the far right) into the sea. In Hamlet it is Horatio (or Fortinbras,
depending on the version) lamenting how such tragic events could come
about. In The Station Agent it is the three friends sitting together, relaxed,
enjoying a cigarette and a joke and comfortable silence. In Children of Men
it is the ship Tomorrow appearing through the mist to rescue mother and
child when all appeared to be lost. In The Incomplete Recorded Works of a
Dead Body it is the ‘narrator’ of this faux-documentary providing a conclu -
sion to the final recording of Babak performing fatal surgery on himself.
The thing about conclusions is that they give the audience the oppor -
tunity to take a breath, to reflect, to prepare for the light fading, the sound
fading or the theme music to kick in. They don’t answer all the questions
that have been raised but they bring a moment of identifiable closure.
CODA
The coda is where the story is self-consciously drawn to a close – as in the
concluding voice-over in American Beauty – or where we glimpse ahead to
the future of the characters – as in the ‘photo album’ in Four Weddings and
a Funeral. It is a brief, even momentary expression of the ‘story beyond’.
Most stories have a kind of unspoken coda – an implied nod forward
to the future. In The Station Agent the conclusion is also a nod to how life
can and hopefully will be for the friends now.
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Some codas are much more oblique and unexplained, like the final
credit sequence of Hidden, where the camera rolls, watching students come
and go from a school. What you see if you look hard enough is that the son
of the dead man suspected of the stalking and the son of the couple being
stalked meet on the steps of the school. We don’t know if they concocted the
whole thing together all along, or if Majid’s son has ominous plans for
Pierrot, or if the as yet unidentified stalker is making a new tape and the
cycle will continue, or if they just know one another and there is no ulterior
meaning. So it’s an ambiguous coda – which befits a film that never really
gave up obvious, neat, simplistic answers to what was going on from the
start. Because it’s not about ‘what’s going on’, it’s about what people do, how
they react, how they change, how they cope when the bubble of middle-class
security around them is burst.
ABSURD ENDINGS
The exception that proves the rule is truly absurd and surreal drama, in
particular where characters are trapped in a recurring reality or night -
mare. At the end of Ionesco’s The Lesson, the pupil and professor are left at
the end of their tethers. And then, once the pupil has departed and the
professor is left to face his failure, the doorbell rings and the same pupil is
shown into the classroom to begin her lesson – again. There is ultimately
no real conclusion or resolution – becaus
e it is a repeating pattern – except
that the lesson is always doomed to failure and that professor and pupil alike
are trapped within this failure, forced to endure it again and again (like
Sisyphus interminably pushing the boulder up the hill).
Absurd and surreal endings only really work and satisfy if they are
the expression of a fundamental existential quandary, one that has reson -
ance even though it defies change and meaning. If you plan to go down the
absurd road, then don’t do it for its own sake or for the ‘effect’ of it – do it
because the only inevitable conclusion in the world you have created is one
that necessarily defies conclusion. In Memento, there is an absurd quality
to the fact that Leonard can never really change because he can’t really
form new memories – but it is a truly poignant expression of his unique life
rather than an empty trick of the plot.
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SERIES AND SERIAL HOOKS
All these things are well and good for single dramas, but series and serial
episodes must conclude a stretch of the story while propelling the char acter
and audience into the next. Until you reach the last ever episode, there is
never a complete ending and so never quite a conclusion.
In soaps, unless your episode is the culmination of a major storyline
or multiple storylines – such as the twenty-fifth anniversary episode of
EastEnders – then there will always be some kind of hook or cliffhanger for
the next episode. There should be a sense of climax, crisis and resolution for
the story of that episode, but instead of a conclusion there will be an un -
answered question or intrigue, or the sure knowledge that what has just
happened in this episode must have necessary consequences in another –
the classic ‘out on so-and-so’s face’ shot before the ‘dum-dum-dum’ intro to
the EastEnders theme music. Satisfying with an ending while keeping the
show moving across week, month and year is one of the defining factors of
what makes a great soap writer.
But if your calling card is for a series then it shouldn’t be for a con -
tinuing series, it should be for a returning series or serial. Most returning
series, especially those with a strong precinct, will necessarily have a story-
of-the-week format at their heart and so you will probably not need a major
cliffhanger, just a promise that there will be another fantastic story-of-the-
week next time round. So the end of episode one of Hustle is Danny
stylishly winning a hand of cards having got himself into the gang – all the
detail you need to know about the show and what it will promise for the
future of this series.
Those returning series with a wider serial arcs – Being Human, Bodies,
Skins – will probably have a cliffhanging element, even though there is a
story-of-the-week that comes to some form of conclusion. So in series one,
episode one, of Being Human, after the crisis in which Mitchell chooses his
friends (and humanity) over the rallying vampires, and the resolution that
the three flatmates have a solid bond and security in one another, we cut
outside to the conclusion of a man watching George through the kitchen win -
dow from the shadows. This man will come back in the next episode and be a
pivotal influence in George’s developing relation ship with his werewolf self.
In serials which reach a finite ending – whether they are three epi -
sodes over three weeks, or six over six, or five episodes over five nights in
196 THE CALLING CARD SCRIPT
one week – the story of that episode will be less conclusive and the cliff-
hanging element will probably contain a major turn of events. Just when
we thought the episode was coming to a neat resolution, a major new ele -
ment or turn on an element will be the conclusion, and we will hopefully
come away both satisfied by what we’ve seen and greedy for what we think
is to come. So, at the end of episode one of Criminal Justice II, stabbed and
critically injured, Joe’s eyes flicker open with the promise of something,
while the senior police detective dampens the spirits of his juniors having
nailed their suspect by asking ‘why’ she did it. This, of course, is what the
whole series is about. Will anyone find out why she did it? We know why.
But will the truth come out in time to prevent a miscarriage of justice? In
the extremely measured pace of this series and first episode, the fact that
this question comes out of the mouth of a policeman is something of a turn
or surprise and will impact not just the killer Juliet, but the junior detec -
tives Sexton and Flo, whose own relationship will ultimately not survive
this difficult case.
CLIFFHANGERS
You can only really get away with a cliffhanger in a single finite story if it’s
done with a sense of humour and a lot of comedic skill. In The Italian Job,
the literal cliffhanger at the end seems to break all the ‘rules’ about fol -
lowing through. But does it? At the end of a comic heist caper, what should
we expect? The final killer line from Michael Caine’s character rescues the
film from an open ending – because he always has a new idea, he always
has a new plan. In a way it doesn’t matter whether they save the loot or see
it dis appear over the cliff – because there will always be the next ‘job’.
There’s something about this ending that says everything about the whole
film. (I don’t think the same can be said about Lock, Stock and Two
Smoking Barrels, when the antique guns teeter on the verge at the end; it’s
a self-conscious nod towards The Italian Job but it doesn’t express the
whole film, it’s really just a trick.)
Cliffhangers at the end of a series are rather different – after all, the
job of any show that has returnable potential is to hook an audience to want
to come back again later. But true cliffhangers are rarely used like this. The
best was at the end of series one of The Green Wing – three characters sit -
ting in a van literally hanging over a cliff edge. In a show that was smart,
THE END 197
intelligent, knowing and unique comedy, that series ending really, truly
worked.
Cliffhangers at the end of each series or serial episode (but not con -
cluding ones) are another thing altogether. You need the audience to come
back to pick up the story next time. But remember that the cliffhanger isn’t
necessarily the climax of the events of the episode. Often it is the twist or
turn just around the corner from the climax – it is the start of the next
stage of the ongoing story.
Some series and serials are more extreme in how they cut away at the
end of an episode. True Blood episodes have a habit of stopping mid-climax
or mid-event, and picking it up again in the next episode (a week later) at
pretty much the same place. But with your calling card script, it’s crucial
that you demonstrate you can conclude an episode story. So while a hook is
necessary, you need to be wary of a true cliffhanger. Because there’s always
the danger that it will necessarily leave a reader unsatisfied precisely
because i
t doesn’t deliver a definitive conclusion.
THE NATURAL ORDER
It’s hard to get away with reinventing the ‘natural order of things’ in an
ending because it naturally follows that events will climax in a crisis in
order to reach a resolution and so a conclusion. It’s telling that while much
of Memento has run concurrently backwards and forwards, at the end of the
narrative we see the two converge and the final events play out in a linear
way and a more natural order for the story to have its meaning.
NO PAUSE FOR BREATH
In some stories the events of the end run so rapidly that climax, conclusion,
resolution, coda can merge into one scene or sequence.
In My Summer of Love, the climactic revelation that Tamsin has been
lying about her life all along leads straight into the final crisis, resolution
and conclusion where Mona confronts Tamsin, teeters on the edge but pulls
back from the brink of a violent, vengeful act, and walks away. That final
sequence from crisis through to conclusion happens very quickly.
In The Seagull, after the crisis of Konstantin accepting the loss of
Nina and tidying away his papers, the resolution of his off-stage suicide and
198 THE CALLING CARD SCRIPT
the final conclusion of this being confirmed for us happens very quickly. In
fact, when it finally comes, it is sudden and stunning.
A MEANS TO AN END
For some stories, whatever the medium, the ending is a brief affair. For
others, it stretches much further across the narrative. There are no rules
about how long it should be. But without that sense of climax, crisis,
resolution and conclusion there’s a real chance that it won’t follow through
or satisfy in terms of story structure. Because although story and structure
are in a way indivisible, structure is still a means to serve the telling of the
story, not the other way round. So whatever you choose to do, the way the
events play out at the end must fit and tell and express and complete the
whole story. This is nothing less than crucial and fundamental – which is
why it is so hard to get right.
THE CHARACTER’S VOICE