d@mn dramatica

It means not every story falls into strict confines.

Now the more a story deviates from those confines the better the person creating it has to be so the audience doesn't end up disappointed or furious.

There can be a variety of endings . . . good, bad, somewhere in between. A character may reach his goal, or not, or partially reach it, or maybe his goal changes over the course of the story, or maybe it's left up in the air (audiences used to hate that).

Think of To Kill a Mockingbird. At the end, the children are safe and Boo Radley is shown not to be some kind of monster . . . but Tom Robinson has been killed.

That's a short answer to a complex question. I'm sure others will have their own ideas.

Hmm, that's the kind of question that walls you in rather than providing a solution that best serves the story. Is achieving the protag's goal really the best thing that could happen to him? And/or is there an unspoken goal or desire behind the obvious one? And/or is there some kind of shared benefits deal that can be worked out between the protag and other characters? You could sprinkle all kinds of alternative And/or logic into the mix until you end up thinking, "Thank God the protag didn't achieve his goal, that would have been a stinker of an ending!" Which kinda skews the question.

Er, pardon my rambling.

-Derek
My Web Page - shameless vampyre fiction & other shameless writings.
Another one of them new worlds. No beer, no women, no pool parlors, nothin'. Nothin' to do but throw rocks at tin cans, and we gotta bring our own tin cans.

Yeah, quite often as the character grows up so do their goals. Fictional character, setting and goal.

Say in the beginning a rather young main character's goal is to be the champion of his sports team.

In the center of the story he gets in a car accident and is paralyzed

By the end of the story he is a role model, reaching out to others and finding a higher purpose to his life than winning a game he once thought was the pinnacle.

So no, he didn't reach his first goal because as he grew up so did his goal.

Real story, don't throw anything at me, I was bored and nothing else was on.

"Bring it on"

Their goal was to win the national championship. They had the dance, they were set. Then a problem, they discover their dance is stolen from another team. The new head cheerleader is determined to have an original dance.

They hire a person to create a dance for them, its an awful dance that another squad also performs at the gateway event, the qualifiers. They are exposed. The rival team is there. They go on to nationals due to already having won it the previous year.

They create an original dance that is all them and they do very well. The other team does great too and the other team wins.

Do they reach their goal of winning?

No.

Do they grow as a team and as individuals?

Yes. But that wasn't their first goal. I think you'll find a lot more stories than you think that don't reach their original goal, but rather reach a higher one.

Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indy looks for the peruvian idol. Gets it, loses it. He then searches for and finds the Ark, loses it, gets it back before ultimately losing it for good.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indy trades ashes for a diamond that he loses in a fight. He then has a chance to get the sacred stones that he ultimately sacrifices and loses.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
As a kid, Indy gets the cross but loses it again. As an adult he finally does get the cross. He then searches for his father and the Grail. Saves his father but loses the Grail.

The flaw with lego-type plot building is that by their criteria, Indiana Jones is a massive loser! Of six adventures and six artefacts he looks for, that we see, he only gets one.

Sometimes it's the journey not the destination. The goal of you and your plot, is not always the same as the goal your characters might have.

I'm not sure I explained that very well. Hopefully it helps.

I think that the way in which the phrase is stated is a bit misleading.

The real question is -- does the protagonist achieve his *need* -- not necessarily his goal.

They may be the same thing, or they may be something rather different.

Often, there is a surface objective -- robbing a bank, saving the world, rescuing the hostages -- but this is text. The real issue is an underlying need -- redemption, salvation, achieving manhood, resisting temptation -- some larger underlying need that has to be achieved.

Now, ultimately, depending upon the choices that the protagonist makes, that need may ultimately not be achieved either -- but I think it clarifies the issue if you look at the story in this larger sense.

NMS

No shooting ...

hubbabubbs said:

Okay, so I use dramatica. Shoot me. But one of the questions got me thinking.
"Does your main character achieve his/her goal." Ay, there's the rub.

In Final Destination (the shot movie, screenplay had a different ending), did they achieve their goal? Yes, they survived, but with the forshadowing that death was coming back for them. Same thing with FD3.

In Fight Club, he finaly beats Tyler, but is unable to stop Tyler's masterplan. So did he accomplish his (Jack's) goal or his (Tyler's) goal?

In Matchstick Men, Roy is finds the relationship with his thought-to-be-daughter to be a scam, yet he hints that he still thinks of them as family at the end. So did he?

The rest of my screenplay collection seems to be pretty solidly "yes" endings with the exception of "Out of Sight".

Anybody got any insight?

Click to expand...

Well, for one thing, there's a lot more to the classic hero story paradigm than just whether or not they achieve their goal. There's also the little matter of resurrection and returning with the elixir.

And, there are also ironic endings, in addition to happy ones and sad ones.

I would heartily suggest, even urge, thet you get "The Writer's Journey," by Christopher Vogler, in which he takes the hero story architecture elucidated by Joseph Campbell and modernizes it for the screenwriter. Mr. Vogler is a movie guy himself, so he speaks directly to us and to our needs.

If you study this book you'll come away with everything you need to know about the classic hero story paradigm, and never again find yourself in the situation you now face.

Now that's a deal you can't refuse!

More commentary on Dramatica: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/000338.html

In a moment of weakness, I bought "Writer's Dreamkit." Worst $100 I ever spent.


Well...

Worst $100 I ever spent in an electronics store.

I tried to use Dramatica but couldn't figure it out.

I'm a sucker for gadgets & procrastination, so I figured it was made for me.

But it just asked me a bunch of questions, I answered them - then it gave back a report with the information I provided it.

So ... what was the point of it?

I'll have to find another way to procrastinate now.

Like this forum ....

Mac

A battle won with the war still looming is always more satisfying than a miracle cure.

Look at Terminator 3. Imagine if shutting down skynet was possible and it ended, him and Kathrine went seperate ways, the machines never came to be, the terminators were never created. It would negate the point of the story.

Instead, it ended, knowing they were at the very beginning of the war, millions upon millions of people were dying and were going to continue dying. But we knew the machines had failed to eliminate him, they had failed to stop their greatest advisary, one man who would undermine everything they had set into place, but it would be a hard won fight, and in the end we don't know if he even comes out completely triumphant. We just know he is going to be a pain.

You don't need a perfect happily ever after ending, just end with hope. Heck some don't even have that. Be true to your story though.

hubbabubbs said:

thanks everyone.

I would liken my situation most to the ball-sucking ending of War of the Worlds, where there is this massive assault on earth that all of a sudden vanquishes itself. I don't want to do that here.

Right now I'm at a point where at the end of the story the MC has resolved his inner turmoil and kept his family safe, but things are still all fvcked up. Now the question is to unfvck them with a cure that I don't have the space to detail the search for, or just leave him having won the battle but not the war.

Not very satisfying,

but then, there's Domino's.

Click to expand...

You need to read Vogler baaaaaaaaaddd.

William Martell's book, The Secrets of Action Screenwriting has some fantastic and practical advice on how to work an ending, too.

It covers the problem you're talking about in a very nuts-and-bolts manner. Plus he's a nice guy.

hubbabubbs said:

I have an idea, which way to go now, but I will check out Vogler anyway.

Click to expand...

Thing is, it will add to your knowledge and serve you well into the future. This isn't the last screenplay you're gonna write. Vogler will help keep you on track in future projects.

Go for it!

hubbabubbs said:

I would liken my situation most to the ball-sucking ending of War of the Worlds, where there is this massive assault on earth that all of a sudden vanquishes itself. I don't want to do that here.

Click to expand...

What should the ending have been? Something a bit more 'human spirit' inspiring, like everyone forgetting their differences, banding together to fight, and then managing to upload a computer virus into the mothership?

I prefer something a bit more modest, like having to get some help from our little friends and allies, the bacteria. Go Earth!