Change, built on Character Integration

Most stories are one of three categories. They are either about the possibility of change, the impossibility of change, or the inevitability of change. Currently, stories about the possibility of change dominate in the Anglo-American world. Other cultures, not so much.

If your story is about the difficult possibility of change, then you probably have a moment of character integration near the end. But that moment can’t be the ending. Stories rarely end with an invisible inner moment.

We need to see it happen

You need to make the last step external, visible, and understandable. And risky.

For the audience to accept that the change is real, the character must show their invisible inner change through their actions in the external world. Unless they exercise that change through action, how would we know?

The remaining external obstacles to the action have to be real and visible too. They can’t just suddenly melt away because somebody has ‘learned to love themselves.’ Or with an ‘it was all a misunderstanding’ conversation.

For us to accept that the internal change is real, we have to see it tested in the external story world.

The character must go through the door, close it behind them, and face the obstacles they know lie in wait. And they must understand that there is a real possibility of failure.

Failure must be possible – even probable

We, and they, must understand that the final action carries immense potential rewards as well as immense potential risks. In our hearts, we need to realise that catastrophic failure and triumphant success are equally likely. If anything, catastrophic failure should feel more likely.

Only then will the success be real to us.

The internal change is not the end of the story. The end of the story is the successful action that only became possible because of the change.

Without the visceral risk of failure, we can’t enjoy the triumph of success.

Some caveats

1. In a tragedy, restoration can only come through sacrifice – usually self-sacrifice. The external test still occurs, but success comes at an enormous personal cost. To save the world and uphold core values, the character must die – literally or psychologically.
   1. Tragedies (aka ‘downers’) are less fashionable in a culture that promises happiness as a birthright.

2. Sometimes the final internal change expresses itself metaphorically rather than through action, usually through music, an image, or voice-over.

For example, Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird uses a ‘soft’ metaphoric resolution. It uses symbolism reinforced by a voice-over rather than an active ending.

• First, we see Ladybird/Christine crying in the church, surrounded by the symbols and expressions of her mother’s Catholicism.

• Then she leaves a message on her mother’s phone – which is effectively a disguised voice-over because the audience is the only active listener.

• But that phone call is also a kind of action, albeit a ‘soft’ action.

• Although Christine has taken the risk that Marion answered the call, the writer rescues her slightly by having it go to messages – softening the risk, but not entirely eliminating it. Which allows her to deliver closure without overt sentiment.

• Christine is finally doing something that she has never successfully done before – admit the love between her and her mother. Even if it is in a voice message, not face-to-face.

• Note the echoes of the opening sequence. Just as the end of the film answers the Philosophical/psychological/moral question asked at the beginning of the film, the ending ‘faces’ the opening. We have come full circle – not back to the beginning as the same conflicted masked person, but back to the questions the beginning asked, but answering them as her unguarded self.

1. Matched cuts of Christine and Marion driving, which echoes both the original driving together sequence, AND the opening shot of their two heads facing each other.

2. Clear shots of the world of Sacramento from Christine’s POV – unlike the second shot of the opening, which has Christine/Lady Bird staring at an obscured, uncertain world outside the motel room.

3. But the story avoids her mother’s reaction – for example, that Marion’s self-protective sarcasm might stop Marion from accepting the offer of Christine’s gratitude and love, and continue to infantilise Christine.

A checklist

In my ending, can the audience see:

1. A tangible, visible deed that proves the new self?

2. Strong opposition? Stronger, if anything, than any time before. Before, the tiger was on the other side of the bars; now, the protagonist has gone into the cage and closed the door behind them.

3. Real risk? What would catastrophic failure look like? Is it genuinely likely?

4. Irreversibility? What makes it impossible for the character to retreat to their former position?

5. Cost? What is the cost to the character of making this choice? Is the choice earned?

6. Echo and Answer? Does the ending ‘face’ the opening image/action/question? What’s the same? What’s changed?