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“The Circle of the Script”—putting a nice touch to the end of a script

It is said that the screenwriter should know the end of his script before he begins it, and this starts with a solid outline.

I agree and do not agree with the knowing your ending part, and the only logical explanation I can think of so far to support its weight is to say that since you only have 120 or less to work with in a script down, you have to time the beginning of your script to its ending—if that making any sense.

I would like to elaborate more on script endings, and this part has a lot to do with the hero’s journey and what I have come to coin “The Circle of the Script” which I borrowed from the “Circle of Life” from, yes, the film “The Lion King”.

Now, the Circle of the Script does not encompass the full ending of the script but instead compliments it. It is a nice touch to the hero’s journey.

What does the hero learn? How has the hero changed?

I have used this technique or formula for two of my scripts: “Turbulence” and “True North” and what I have learned from “Turbulence” I have applied to “True North” in the revisions.

In “Turbulence” the heroine has been the victim of a porn ring, which, she believes, has ruined any chances of her dating a nice guy until she is asked out in a bookstore. After he is turned down with no explanation, he challenges her, seeing that she is wearing a fake ring, a beer tab.

By the end of the script, after the climactic scene, after the heroine and the guy have spent some valuable and critical romantic time together, he proposes to her in the book store, but this time he is dressed up like the tin man, proposing to her with that same beer tab ring.

The heroine says, yes, of course. She has made the journey from shame and embarrassment in the beginning of the script to having gotten over her past.

In “True North” Max, the hero, dressed in full, baseball uniform, stops down at the library to work on his children’s book in the children’s department before his minor league tryout, which he does not want to go to but is doing for his family and greedy girlfriend. At the library, in the children’s department he is suggested as trouble for children, arrested and taking down to the police station to be questions by detective Mango, who finds him harmless and drawn closer.

By the end of the script, after the climax, the next day Max is found dressed in street clothes in the children’s department of the public library, but this time when Mango arrives, she is not there to arrest him but instead to ask him if he would like to join her for lunch.

These script ending are two examples of “The Circle of Life” or giving a nice touch to the hero’s journey. I am not saying this formula is going to work with every script, or every script is going to work out like this, but it might just be one of my script signatures, adding to my voice.

The key is knowing the ending to your script, then beginning your script, then transferring that beginning to the very end of the script.

Has this article helped you?

Read more articles by Matt Janacone http://screenwritermattjanacone.blogspot.com/
 
Of course a writer must know his ending before he begins. first you must have a story before you even write the screenplay. So with knowing the story, all the contents of it should be known to the writer; from start to finish.
 
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