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> If somebody reads your script and they're like, well the protagonist clearly FELL but then the only KINDA ROSE but KINDA STAYED THERE and I don't get what the
by bnralt 3y ago
> If somebody reads your script and they're like, well the protagonist clearly FELL but then the only KINDA ROSE but KINDA STAYED THERE and I don't get what the point is? Are you trying to say their efforts were worthwhile or futile? And then the writer is going to do much better if they change the story to become clearly either "FALL" or "FALL, RISE" -- instead of a muddy in-between.
Plenty of good stories have ambiguous endings. That’s actually one of the issues with this article - even when things are abstracted to the point of absurdity like they are here, it still doesn’t cover all stories.
- crazygringo 3y ago> Plenty of good stories have ambiguous endings. But they still generally follow the pattern. Probably the most common "ambiguous" ending is where protagonist gets what the WANT (seems like a RISE) but not what they actually NEED (so it's actually a FALL). Or vice-versa, the don't get what they WANT (seems like a FALL), but they do get what they NEED (so actually a RISE). So the "ambiguous" ending is not usually about not following RISE/FALL structure -- it's leaving you to argue about whether the RISE/FALL was good or bad. (E.g. he lost his Wall St job but gained a family, he conquered the mountain but his best friends died along the way.)