Screenwriting Advice From The Past: The Denouement [Part 3]

“Coincidence does not enter into real life every day. It is quite permissible, however, as a basis for a story, but it is bad form to base your main scene on some pure accident which has nothing to do with the plot or theme.”

If you are a screenwriter, you should know about Anita Loos. Loos was one of the most influential writers in the early stages of American cinema, associated with 136 film projects per IMDb.

Married to writer John Emerson, the pair wrote one of the first books on screenwriting in 1920: “How to Write Photoplays”. I have been running a weekly series based on the book. You can access those posts here.

Today: The Denouement [P. 90].

It is a puzzling fact that 50 per cent of the photoplays written in any year will base their denouement on some coincidence. The girl will discover that the guardian is a scoundrel not by some natural evolution of the plot, but by overhearing a conversation or by picking up a lost letter. The key to the situation, in short, is discovered by accident — which is always the least artistic and telling way of accomplishing the denouement.

Coincidence does not enter into real life every day. It is quite permissible, however, as a basis for a story, but it is bad form to base your main scene on some pure accident which has nothing to do with the plot or theme. The audience will either say, “That wouldn’t have happened — no such luck,” or else they will feel that you are cheating them by taking an easy way out of a difficult situation.

As noted in the previous post, Loos and Emerson use the term denouement differently than I understand it to mean in contemporary Hollywood story development circles: Whereas I think of it as the the scene after the Final Struggle where the script gives the reader a sense of what the Protagonist’s life will be post-journey, in “How to Write a Photoplay,” the authors state “it is the moment of revelation when the audience sees the point of the story.” That sounds more like the climax or Final Struggle.

If we make that ‘translation’ from denouement to Final Struggle or climax, there is a huge takeaway from today’s excerpt: The resolution of the plot can not be based on a coincidence.

First, there is a well-known bit among Hollywood writers: You are only allowed one coincidence per script that advantages your Protagonist. No one knows where this came from, but it’s been around for a long time, passed on from writer to writer. The problem with more than one coincidence? A story can begin to smack of ‘writer’s convenience,’ whereby events that transpire within the story universe feel like they are happening not due to the authentic intentions of characters, but the needs of the writer to manipulate the plot this way or that. This is a bad thing generally, but when it happens with the climactic action of the Final Struggle, it can leave a massive bad taste in a script reader’s mouth. As Loos and Emerson say, “That wouldn’t have happened — no such luck.” The moment is not an expression of characters in action, but rather a writer.

Second, a well-crafted ending carries with it a sense of inevitability. That is when the events of the Final Struggle unfold, even when they are surprising, as we experience them [readers or movie audience], they should feel like they fall within the internal logic of the characters and plot. In other words, they should provide an “ahh” moment for readers, where the penny drops and we see how various plot elements have all led to this. Not coincidence, but destiny.

So when Clarice Starling shoots Buffalo Bill… or Dorothy Michaels reveals herself to be a guy on live TV… or the people of Bedford Falls rally around George Bailey, the way those moments play out are intrinsic to the internal logic of the story, not something squashed onto the plot by the writer as a coincidence.

This is a critical point, wafting through the decades to give each of us a reality check. Another reason to value the insights of Loos and Emerson.

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Tomorrow: More screenwriting advice from the past.

You can read “How to Write Photoplays” via Google books online here.

For the rest of the series articles:

Introduction
Getting Ideas
Conflict and Crisis
Situation
Theme
Star Sympathy
Action: Part 1
Action: Part 2
Action: Part 3
Action: Part 4
Action: Part 5
Story Synopsis
Continuity: Part 1
Continuity: Part 2
The Title
Marketing the Script
Writing for the Camera
Scenery for Scenarios
The Actor’s Angle: Part 1
The Actor’s Angle: Part 2
Character On The Screen: Part 1
Character On The Screen: Part 2
Character On The Screen: Part 3
Character On The Screen: Part 4
The “Interest”: Part 1
The “Interest”: Part 2
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 1
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 2
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 3
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 4
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 5
What to Write and Not to Write: Part 1
What to Write and Not to Write: Part 2
What to Write and Not to Write: Part 3
Cutting The Picture: Part 1
Cutting The Picture: Part 2
Cutting The Picture: Part 3
Writing for the Censors: Part 1
Writing for the Censors: Part 2
Writing for the Censors: Part 3
The Pictorial Element
The Denouement: Part 1
The Denouement: Part 2

Note: I ran this series originally in 2012. Unfortunately, the individual articles got bungled up on the site in some sort of technical snafu. So, I am recovering them one by one in this reprise of the series.