Your Audience Is Smarter Than You

Beat it out of him

The third act is fast and brutal. The main character is at the end of the road. All of the obstacles they’ve faced so far have taken every ounce of courage and strength they have to overcome. They’re at the point where everything is lost. Somehow they find the strength to overcome that final climactic obstacle and save the day. At least that’s the idea. Obviously some stories aren’t life or death struggles. Sometimes the story is simply falling in love or overcoming a loss. Whatever the scale of the struggle that third act should be the ultimate resolution. Does the main character find love? Do they find a way to overcome that loss? Whether they do or not the struggle at the end should be do or die. And it needs to be hard. Extremely hard. Even when Frodo made it to Mount Doom it was still a struggle to throw the ring into the fire. He was broken and exhausted and he still had to face the greatest struggle of the story. I’m trying to build that struggle into the end of this story.

Harlan’s ultimate struggle

This whole story is about Harlan running away from his family. Yes, it’s about Harlan and Nathan trying to get to Nerdtacular, but the trip to Nerdtacular is an excuse to run away from his family. Harlan’s final struggle should be his return to his family. So that’s what I’m building. The third act of this story is all about Harlan finding his way back to his family after he’s done so much to get away from them. Here are the beats.

• ·      They get a ride from a pair of celebrity impersonators.
• ·      They end up at a school for celebrity impersonators. Is this fantasy or reality?
• ·      If they don’t leave tonight they’ll miss Nerdtacular completely.
• ·      They try to leave just when the FBI surrounds the compound. Fantasy or reality? Is that just a sheriff’s deputy looking for the guys who ditched a car a few miles up the road?
• ·      They have to sneak out in the middle of the night. They steal a van from the carpool.
• ·      Fantasy car chase sequence
• ·      Harlan is almost completely in his fantasy world. He’s reacting to things in the real world in very strange ways.
• ·      The drive to Nerdtacular is chaotic and dangerous. Nathan is getting scared.
• ·      They arrive at Nerdtacular. Harlan imagines it as a sneak into the death star sort of scenario.
• ·      Nathan tries to talk some sense into Harlan. Harlan thinks Nathan is under the control of the imaginary bad guys.
• ·      Fantasy sequence getting into Nerdtacular.
• ·      Harlan succumbs to his injuries and passes out.
• ·      He wakes up in the hospital. His wife and son are there. He’s suspicious of them.
• ·      He’s so awful to them that they leave.
• ·      Harlan discovers Nathan’s real motives for the road trip.
• ·      Harlan escapes from the hospital again, this time to find his family.
• ·      Fantasy sequence to find his family.
• ·      Harlan arrives at the hotel where his wife and son are staying. He’s injured, delirious, and weak. He apologizes and asks them not to leave him.
• ·      A final fantasy sequence with Harlan, his wife, and his son together as a team.

I started the beats in Act 2. I wanted to make sure I got the notes about the celebrity impersonators in the beats. You’ll also notice that the act is pretty short. I like a short third act. There are a few reasons for this. Since we’re all well versed in the 3 act structure as viewers we kind of know what to expect. It doesn’t require a lot of set up or explanation to the audience to tell us this is the climax. With that in mind I think it’s best to get to it. Present the obstacle, show the main character overcoming the obstacle, and end. Some films have a long tail. They draw out the ending. I believe that once you hit that moment where the problem is solved it’s time to fade to black. Let the audience fill in the rest. For this story I think it would be cool to end with one last fantasy sequence. This time it involves Harlan and his family all in the fantasy together. If I do it well (and I probably won’t) it will show that Harlan has grown and that he sees that there is a future with his family. He doesn’t want to escape them anymore. Instead he’s bringing them into his dreams with him.

Wise readers

As Scott pointed out in the comments on an earlier post, Harlan doesn’t fix everything in the end. Instead he begins to repair these relationships he’s neglected for years. I like an ending that puts the responsibility on the audience to decide if the solution works. At the end Harlan has clearly learned something and has altered his behavior but after years of habit will it be a change he can stick to? That’s not what the movie is about. That’s the beginning of a different movie. How will his family respond to his new attitude? We’ll have to see a hint at their reaction but we won’t deal with it at length. This story comes to an end when Harlan makes the choice to invest in his family. That’s the end of this story and that’s where the script should end.

The End

The point I think this post needs to make is that you shouldn’t drag out the end of the story. Get to the point because the audience is sophisticated enough to know when you get there. They’re smart enough to realize that Harlan’s life continues beyond the events in the film. They can go home and wrestle with the questions of where Harlan’s life will go after the credits roll. Let them. Open that door for them and they will gladly pass through. Count on your audience to be smarter than you are. They’ll appreciate it.

Next time we’ll talk about some tools for the middle and end of the story. In particular we’ll talk about the often promised “what’s the worst that can happen” tool and we’ll discuss want vs. need. As always share your thoughts in the comments. There have been some excellent thoughts that have really helped this story so keep them coming.