 Drama: August 19, 2015 Issue [#7147] |
  Drama
This week: Surprise Endings Edited by: Joy  
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“You might ask yourself why you want to surprise your readers in the first place. A surprise ending is sort of like a surprise party. Probably some people, somewhere, enjoy having friends and trusted colleagues lunge at them in the sudden blinding light of their own living room, but I don't think most of us do.”
― Jincy Willett, The Writing Class
“Plot is people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life, working at cross purposes, getting hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other until finally there’s an explosion—that’s Plot.”
—Leigh Brackett
“The writing of a mystery story is more of a sport than a fine art. It is a game between the writer and the reader. If, once in a while, a really fine book comes out of this contest, that is good; but the game’s the thing. If, on Page 4, the reader knows that the soda cracker is spread with butter mixed with arsenic, and later on this is proven to be true, then the reader has won the game. If, however, when the reader finishes the book, he says, ‘I didn’t get it—all the clues were there, plain as who killed Cock-Robin, but I didn’t get it,’ then the author has won the game. The author has to play fair, though. He has to arrange his clues in an orderly manner, so that the reader can see them if he looks hard enough.”
—Polly Simpson Macmanus
Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. This issue is about surprise endings.
Thank you for reading our newsletters and for supplying the editors with feedback and encouragement.
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
Sometimes when I click on the reviews section on the left hand column of a WdC page, I come across reviews that only say something like, “I wasn’t surprised with the ending,” or “I could guess the ending.” Meaning, if the reader could guess the ending, he or she considered the entire piece as bad writing. I wonder, at times, how any writer would not take offense when faced with such a remark. Yes, the movies and the TV industry have trained writers and their audience to expect titillation and trick endings, but can we stomach just any haphazardly written trick ending as writerly art? I don’t think so.
First rule for any ending is to settle things at the end of the story, and several effective ways exist to close a piece. Surprise ending is only one of those ways. For that reason, rather than expecting every piece of writing to end in a surprising twist, we must first understand how a good surprise ending can be written.
In fact, a surprise ending, when well-written, can be a most memorable ending. When a serious plot twist happens near the end of a story, changing one’s view of the preceding scenes and events, it is known as the surprise ending. A surprise ending is also called the O’Henry ending, although O’Henry wasn’t the only author who used it. When we read a story with a satisfactory ending that surprises us, say The Gift of the Magi, we see that, even though, the author twisted the ending into a surprise, he still used the elements of the story to do it.
A good surprise ending begins with figuring out what the readers' expectation from the story might be, and then, reversing or twisting the plot against that expectation. In other words, the plot leads toward an inevitable conclusion; and, at the last possible minute, you throw something in it to change everything, while making perfect sense.
How to use the elements of a story for a surprise ending:
 Characters: Introduce and insert a character into the main story; then at the end, reverse what is true about him. You may have the protagonist suddenly recognize his own or another character's true identity or nature. For example: In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus finds out who his mother really is at the end of the play. In the movie, The Sixth Sense, the main character believes he is alive, helping a boy to communicate with dead people, then at the end discovering that he himself is really dead.
False protagonist/antagonist: You might use a false protagonist by changing who the real main character is at the end of the story. In the movie Psycho, Marion Crane is shown as the main character only to be killed early in the plot, to surprise the audience and thus prepare Bates to turn out as the true villain.
Flashback: Surprise your readers with a previously unknown event that someone in the story recalls, which provides the answer to a mystery, placing the character or the event in a different light. The TV series Boardwalk Empire used this device quite effectively.
A sudden reversal: If you suddenly change the character’s fortune or the setting or any other element of the story at the end, make sure this sudden change emerges from the earlier story scenes or the circumstances of the plot, and a hint at it is hidden inside the story. A good example is The Planet of the Apes when, at the end, the audience finds out the planet was earth all along.
The caveat here is not to use in the ending the unpredictable Deus Ex Machina: ▼ (God from Machine) A contrived plot device that suddenly changes the ending by using the improbable such as divine intervention against the story’s internal workings. trick .
Poetic Justice: Although it is unexpected, you can make divine justice occur at the end, mostly by a previously unseen yet probable mistake or circumstance. For example, in a concentration camp, the SS guard, who sends prisoners to death, finds out later that among the dead is his own son with whom he had lost touch.
May all your surprises turn out to be delightful…
Until next time… 
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This Issue's Tip: One way to come up with surprise endings is--sometime in the middle of the story--to make a list of ten possible endings, no matter how crazy they sound, but you'll need to do this brainstorming very quickly, maybe about in half an hour. Then take a day or two to let the items on the list work on your imagination. Then get back to the list and pick the few (about four) top ones, deepen them inside your mind. I suggest you take time to do this. Then choose one alternative ending with an added surprise and work it into the story.
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Feedback for "The Use of Vignettes in Storytelling"
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Quick-Quill 
I often write vingettes that will then be inserted into the story at different times. they may be snipets of actions, setting descriptions, They aren't the story they are, as you said, snapshots of information.
Yes, I know what you mean.
Sometimes, I start with a tiny bit of something, and while writing it, other ideas around it are born, turning the vignette into a mini story.
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Nixie🦊 
Thanks, Joy. I'm always writing stories in my head, it's rather annoying, really, but they come in short bursts, usually a few beginning fantastic scenes, and then I have nowhere to go with them. Maybe I'll start calling them Vignettes and adding them to my portfolio.
Not a bad idea to put them together somewhere, Nixie, and thanks for the feedback.
I have this crazy idea of writing a whole bunch of stories as if vignettes around a common theme and use it in NaNo in November, but I am not too sure I can pull it. I think it may be worth a try, though.
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