Writers Write creates writing resources and shares writing tips. In this post, we suggest three other ways to write that happy ever after ending.
Walking Into The Sunset
We won’t always admit it, but most of us love a happy ending to a story. How many movies or TV shows have we watched with the cliché ‘into the sunset’ ending – either the lone hero riding off into the sunset, or the couple walking hand in hand into the sunset.
Sunsets are a good way to signal ‘happy ever after’ and to show a story world returned to a state of harmony. Sunsets are good but let’s look at some other ways you can write that final moment of the final scene in a story, novel or screenplay.
3 Other Ways To Write That Happy Ever After Ending
▌Give it a twist. Staying with the idea of sunsets, you could play with it a bit. What if the lovers kiss under a neon sign of a sunset at a tropical bar? Or your hero walks into a café with a sign hanging over the door that reads: ‘Sunset Café’. The reader or viewer will be in on the joke, and it will add a bit of a twist to your story.
▌Mine other stock endings. Famous stories use other familiar elements in the final scenes. Lovers kissing in the rain or the snow are good scenarios. But, even here you could shake it up a bit. The rain can be a lawn sprinkler or a foam machine at a party. In a snow scene, you can have a two snow figures holding hands behind the kissing couple.
▌Hold the beat. Sometimes it pays to hold off on the happy ending. For instance, you could have the heroine waiting for the hero on a city bridge, while the sun slowly sets behind her. Night falls and still he doesn’t show. She returns to her apartment and just before she opens the door, the hero comes rushing up the stairs behind her – the train broke down and caused him to miss their yearned for reunion on the bridge.
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