The End of the Story

 "Why can't these writers come up with endings that work?" 

This sounds like a quote from some modern-day film producer or book critic. In fact, it was written by Aristotle who predates movies and the printed word by a good few years. 

 

Endings are hard. Have you ever sat through a perfectly good movie only to be disappointed, confused or even angry at the end? One of the problems with endings is that the really satisfying ones are often also the most predictable. This is partly because the ending we want as a viewer is the one that does all the things we are hoping will happen. As a writer, sometimes the job is to get to this end in a way that looks like you won't get there or provide an end which is original. There is a need to be creative amongst writers that can make going for the obvious distasteful.  

 

In improv, obvious is very much our friend. Doing what is obvious to you and hopefully the group allows you to build a story in steps that keeps everyone on board and allows you to make a longer, more cohesive story than if you take big "creative" steps. 

 

The ending in an improv scene or narrative can also be obvious. It should, in general, be a tying up of as many things that have been established as possible without it feeling overdone or trite. And given the fact that improv audiences are more forgiving than moviegoers, knowing as they do what is being done is being made up there and then (and not been in production for the best part of a year), you shouldn't worry too much about overdoing it and certainly you should not overthink it. 

 

Surprise endings in general rarely work well. It’s fantastic when they do (these are the story endings that get celebrated), but so often they don’t quite get it right. Even in movies and books, where the writer has time to put enough subtle clues in so that the surprise is surprising but also still satisfying, I would say most attempts at a "surprise ending" don't please the audience. In improv, we can't be nearly so clever as to pepper subtle clues to something we have no idea about at that moment. Truly random ends to stories with no clues to them are the ones that make people the most confused and angry. Many people reading this will recall improvised stories they were in where at the last minute something unexpected was introduced that became or triggered the end. 

 

The satisfying ends are when something that has been struggled or searched for is finally achieved or found. Or it is not found, but the characters realise something important about themselves, in particular that they didn’t need it and what they really needed they had all along. A good end comes from a clear want or need, either of the central character or the group as a whole. In fact, a very satisfying story sees the group get what they need, the hero gets something they wanted, and the antagonist gets what they deserve. Another common end is to end up back where you started but with a new perspective. 

 

That’s not to say all endings should be like these. Tragic endings are the opposite, where the protagonist doesn't get what they, the group doesn’t succeed, and, indeed, everyone might be dead. These absolutely work for some types of story. And in between are the perhaps more realistic “poignant victories” where something has been achieved but at a cost.” Some endings are deliberately anticlimactic or ambiguous. Some genres demand it. But they should still feel true to the events and the world of the story. 

 

The end is a hard time, but we are instinctive storytellers. It might be hard to know what to do for an end, but when an end happens, we feel it. The audience especially does. I have been at enough shows where the audience has felt the end and is surprised the story is continuing. Sometimes leading to a further end or pleasing “denouement” but mostly not. 

 

So, if you have listened hard throughout, stopped making up new things after the middle, played and explored the characters, situations and world you have, realise what the characters want and need, and set the on the path to achieving that, you’ll be on your way to something that feels like an end. 

IMPRO Amsterdam 2017: Day 2: Twosday

As a reaction to the heated activity around the Compagnietheater Amsterdam always gets very cold in the week of the festival. It often snows. It hasn’t so far, but the canals are freezing and extremities get a bit numb if you let them. The Swedes on the other hand, are enjoying the very mild temperatures.

Today’s open stage had lights, music and members of the main-stage cast. It’s certainly building.The crowd also seems to be growing.

The first main-stage show was Mortal Coil a format devised and directed by directed by Patti Stiles. It’s an interwoven-stories type of format and Patti gives subtle direction in that she doesn’t use a lot of words but she gets a lot of information in there. She sets up a clear start and then usually leaves the actors to find their path. She brings the strands together with ease.

The stand-out story was the relationship between a queen and her servant (played by Marta Borges from Portugal and Felipe Ortiz from Columbia). It was a bitter-sweet tale of two people who love each other but could never admit it because of their differing roles. They played perfectly the pathos underscored with some great physical comedic games. It’s exactly the sort of thing Chaplin was aiming for.

The main show of the evening was Big Bang Improv from Boston in the US. The name is well chosen. They start strong and keep expanding. They start by getting something that “brings you joy” which is a simple and powerful way to begin and already puts the audience in a good mood.

Movement is a big part of the show and they managed to use much of the theatre and also the audience. They swap easily between scenes using a variety of techniques, but it is always clear that a new scene has been started. Even when there is little movement to show a new scene, there are clear physical, vocal and emotional cues. They are great at following paths, heightening, using whatever happens and creating great “what if?” situations.

The most notable moment for me was the expression “broken sperm” being expanded by logical steps so we can see the full world of spermatozoa including this one broken sperm making it through to graduating university (presumably graduating cum laude).

A great show which found a great end incorporating much of what had happened before.

The Greek group Bus Kai (which is probably not pronounced how you think) performed their show Myth to Myth as one of the late-night shows, They are a duo who take their inspiration from the mythological stories they read as children, bringing their childhood books for the audience to pick a phrase out of to inspire them.

They then took the structure of these myths and brought our two heroes on a journey of both literal traveling and self-discovery. They had a good use of the structure and archetypes of these myths. They struggled a little to find the end but we were still very much with them when they did. A fun turning of myths into a cute modern story.

Finally, I’m reposting this famous photo from the battle of Impro Jima...

Reincorporation

Reincorporation is an important part storytelling. In fact you can't tell a story without bringing things back from earlier. If you don't bring any information back or continue any things that are set up, you aren't telling a story but simply saying a bunch of random stuff. It's also an important part of comedy. Catchphrases and running jokes are clear comedic examples of reincorporation.

Reincorporation, if you're not familiar with the term and not worked it out from the beginning, is reusing something you set up earlier in a scene or story or show. In James Bond movies, James is given some innocuous looking gadgets by Q whilst Bond goofs off to distract you from how important these objects are. They are in fact magical weapons in terms of mythical hero's journey. Later on these objects are reincorporated at a key moment to save our hero.

Reincorporation being important in storytelling has two main implications. Firstly that if you establish something, it should used or referred to later on. The Russian author and doctor Anton Chekhov is credited with outlining this by stating that if a gun is set up in act one, it should go off by act three. In writing this means don't set up more than you need. Everything should have a purpose. Even if that purpose is not to be reused, but to be there to illustrate character, the severity of the situation, etc. In improv this means use what you set up.

Creativity in stories, is not, as it first appears, simply about creating new things, but much more about using and reusing the things that are set up.

One thing I've learned performing improv, and had highlighted by doing solo shows, is that there is no such thing as a throwaway line. Everything has meaning. And I don't just mean the lines said by other characters, I also mean your own lines. So many improvisers, even very good ones who listen so well to what others say, don't listen to themselves. They don't see if they said was what they meant to say, or if they said it how they meant to say it. If you meant to say one thing but said something slightly different (as frequently happens on and off stage), what you actually said is what has been put out there and overrides what you meant to say. If you're not aware of that, suddenly you are not on the same page as your fellow performers who were listening to what you said. If you meant to sound angry, but you realise it came out more as confused, then your character is confused. Use it.

Ideally everything set up will be used somehow. You shouldn't be creating new things if old things are lying unused.

The other implication is that towards the end of a story, you should only be using what has been set up previously. You should have all the information you need to finish the story. If Jack pulls a gun in the final scene to save his life that was never referred to before, this is disappointing. Same with any reveal at the end that was not set up before. A good murder mystery should keep you guessing until the end but when the secret is revealed, it should be so satisfying because all the pieces make sense. Mystery endings where important information had been held back from the reader or viewer so that there would have been no way of working it out make you feel cheated. Endings like this care called "Deus ex machine" or "god from the machine" because it was often how the Greeks ended plays, with a god coming down and magically making everything all right rather than having the characters solve it themselves. It nearly always makes for disappointing endings. Especially to a modern audience who are not used to having gods meddle so much in their stories.

With writing, you have the luxury of what I call preincorporation. This is where you can go back and add information at the beginning of the story once you know what you need at the end. So if the only way for Jack to save himself is to have a gun, then go back and set up early on that he keeps a gun in his third drawer down. Bingo! Goes from deus ex machina to deus ex syrtária.

We don't have this luxury in improv (and don't have to use it in writing). We can be more creative. In improv you need to use what you have set up to help you out. And trust me, something you (or someone) has said or established and can be reused to save you. Remember that chewing gum Jack put in your pocket to keep because Florence had touched it? Yes that.

In fact the skill in movies and books is for the things to be set up and reused just as the audience has forgotten about them being there. It's a subtle balance. The audience must, when reminded, remember what was set up, so it usually has to be more than just something hanging on the wall amongst a whole bunch of things. The audience's attention has to be drawn to it without them being aware of it. If you go in too strong, the audience will realise it's being set up and the pay off won't work. Too subtle and most people won't remember where the thing came from and again will seem like a deus in the machina. A very good way of doing it is to draw our attention to it, but make us think it's served its purpose. Such as the gum in the pocket which was set up to illustrate Jack's obsession with Florence but which finds a new use as the magical weapon that saves him from his nemesis.

In improv, you rarely have the luxury of knowing what objects you will use later. And being subtle about them but remembering them is close to impossible. Ideally you will use all of the objects and ideas you set up. And use them several times. It is way more satisfying to get a lot of use out of a few important objects than hardly any use out of a vast collection of artefacts. As Jack thought popping the gum into his mouth, not only reincorporating it as an object one last time but also using it to illustrate how his journey had cured him of his obsession with Florence.

Of Dying and Death

When people start to improvise, the scared actor often looks for any excuse to leave the scene. One common one is to die. For this reason (and the fact that the player left behind probably won't have the skills or confidence to carry on alone), improvisers are generally encouraged (or told) not to die. This training sticks and is not helped by the generosity that improv engenders which means we don’t like to kill our fellow players or leave them stranded. Often there is also an understandable attachment to our own characters and a reluctance to have them killed off.

But we should realise that there are times when dying is the best thing we can do. It’s the right choice for that scene, story or situation. Death is a very big part of stories. Of the last 10 films you saw, how many involved people dying? People die in stories all the time. In a murder mystery at least one person HAS to die. Imagine a war film where nobody is killed? You'd probably want your money back. Historical dramas, Westerns, thrillers, science fiction... all of these are highly likely to feature someone dying. Even rom coms will knock off characters more than you’d think. How many times have you seen someone's elderly relative shuffle off her mortal coil after imparting some aged wisdom? See Four Weddings and a Funeral for a prime example of death in a rom com and fairy tales for plenty of examples of it in children’s stories.

Scene from Up!

Proponents of the Hero's Journey school of story construction will tell you that death is a big part of it. Death is very important as it shows the importance of this quest. It highlights that it is a life-or-death struggle. So death will be faced by the central character, maybe literally (as it often is in myths where the hero dies and has to be reborn), but often metaphorically (as in death of a way of a way or phase of life) or (as is the most often in modern stories) it is experienced through the death of a loved one or trusted aide.

So for the improviser, this means that if we are telling stories (and we are, even without trying), we should realise death is an important aspect of stories as it is of life. It is one of our greatest fears; it is the ultimate price that we can pay. And it is through facing, experiencing and maybe overcoming death that stories become more vital.

So don’t be afraid of death in improv. Embrace it. Have it in your arsenal of things that can happen so that when the moment is right and the story/scene feels like it needs it, it can happen and then you or the other players can deal with the consequences.

And if you are killed off, it doesn’t have to mean the end of your character or your involvement in the scene or story. This we’ll deal with another time.

Impro vs Ego

A recent workshop with the great Patti Stiles, set me thinking about the Ego and the performer. Something that's fascinated me since I first realised the Ego doesn't come about through being overconfident (as it seemed), it comes from fear. Patti reminded us of how the Ego is the nemesis of Impro and pointed out the ways it tries to thwart the noble Impro on its quest to tell the best stories it can.

• The Ego is what makes an improviser do what he wants to do rather than what the scene needs.
• The Ego makes the actor go for the gag instead of the story.
• The Ego is what makes us hate getting notes from our fellow players and treat them as attacks.

The Ego is created and nurtured by fear and mistrust.

• A performer without an Ego will jump on stage and make you look good without even thinking about it.
• A performer without an Ego is concerned with presenting the story to the audience and not looking for their moment to shine.
• A performer without an Ego takes a note as a suggestion to try a new path or a helpful insight into performing habits.

Fellow travellers, we must join forces and fight along side the hero impro in its struggle against the forces of Ego. We can only do this together, for when we think as a team and are concerned with the welfare for all the other members of our merry band just as much as for ourselves, only then can Ego be defeated.

Impro Thought of the Day: The hero Impro has many helpers, but one true nemesis: Ego

The hero Impro has many helpers, but one true nemesis: Ego.

Highlighting the Story

Although the basic premise of improvised storytelling is to keep it simple and logical, there's actually a bit more to it than that. There are definitely other skills to use to make your story really be effective.

One important skill is having a sense of where you are in a story. This is almost essential for making those choices when the next step can be one of several things, any of which lead down wildly different paths. It can also help see how particular events can be used to show the progression of the character.

Quite often in a story, certain things will happen several times. Their outcome or impact on the story or character differs depending on where you are in that story.

For example, say a particular story is about a guy who hangs around a bowling alley. Almost certainly this guy is going to bowl a couple of times. Probably much of the time the bowling will be background / environment work in that it won’t be significant. The bowls themselves won't be important, but might be used to show mood. I'm a great believer that saying "I'm angry" is (generally) much less interesting and realistic than doing what you're doing in an angry way.

In our story, for example, 2 people could have a heated discussion whilst bowling and we can see how the rollercoaster of emotions affects their bowling. We can see what they're feeling without it having to be explained to us. A sadly bowled ball is vastly different to a triumphantly bowled ball.

But, occasionally, some actions will be given a high prominence in the story.

At the start, a bowl could help define the character (or establish the ordinary world) of the hero. Put simply: If he scores a strike, he’s a great player; if he scores a gutter ball, he’s an awful player; and a middling score means he’s an average Joe.

Depending on where he starts, you can often predict what later bowls will be like. To show what I mean, let's look at a classic “comeback” story:

The hero starts the piece bowling extremely well – he's at the top of his game. But something happens and he starts playing really badly. This is a turning point (or first threshold) and around here he will have a spectacularly bad shot that symbolises everything that has gone wrong. He will then fight to get back on form. In this sort of story there's usually a big build-up to a comeback match upon which everything depends. Not just the match itself, but also the player's career, his relationship and even his life. This match will eventually hang on one single shot. This shot will obviously be given a lot of status (through the build-up and the way it's talked about and presented – in a movie, it will probably happen in slow motion with dozens of cutaway shots to see people's reactions). It will also be an amazingly skilful shot or an unfathomably lucky one.

Now, whilst scenes should not be about what's happening, but instead the relationship between the characters, stuff should happen. And if that stuff actually reflects or symbolises what's happening to the characters, then this is perfect. In fact screenwriting is all about making stuff happen that illustrates the characters and relationships because we can't see the human brain working, we can only see the effects it has on people, namely their actions. Thus this final bowl isn't about a ball going down an alley. This ball now represents everything: The hero's hopes, dreams, career, love-life and even himself. If the ball makes a strike, the hero regains his self esteem; the girl will love him; his peers will welcome him back with open arms; he'll have the prize money to pay off his debts and not have his legs broken by the debt collectors. If the ball goes into the gutter, his hopes and dreams follow it; the girl he loves will leave for good; and he'll wind up a sorry, broken man, or even dead. It's really not about bowling any more. In fact, it never really was.