I need help with my story's ending.

lukewarmwater · Jul 8, 2014

Hi, Everyone I'm new to the forum. Sorry for being blunt about this but I'm in a bind and was wondering if anyone could help.

So I'm in the pre-production process of shooting a short film. The short film is kind of like a twilight zone / edgar allan poe story.

The story takes place in two locations. A house ( which I have ) and a park/forest.

The story climaxes at the end when the character goes into an environment that is unsafe. The character risks going into the environment to get something, but as he goes to get it the environment proves too dangerous and kills him. It's not important that it kills him, so much as the character losses a lot. Although I would prefer if it was death.

That is what I need to happen dramatically.

In the context of the story I wrote a cave. And that the character is a security guard/ranger and has gotten a memo that the cave is dangerous, and should be avoided. He goes in to get something and eventually it collapses on him and dies inside.

The problem I have is that it is damn near impossible to shoot a film in a cave. All caves are either blocked off or tourist attractions. So I am stuck. I either need to figure out how to "fake" a cave or find a substitute environment in the context of the story that is able to do what the cave did dramatically.

The problem also is the character goes into the location in the first place to get something of value. The character risks going into the cave because he believes there is silver down below and it's worth the risk.

I thought about the character wandering into a closed off building and then getting caught by the police, but it's not dramatic enough.

I thought about the character waking across a rope bridge, and it proving unsafe, but that seems too coincidental.

I thought about the character selling everything has and then placing a bet, and then loosing, but it just isn't the right genre.

The genre is meant to be a horror, and to me it just doesn't feel like a horror if at the end of the story the character just losses money or is arrested. I also don't want to cheat and have the character fall off of a ladder or something convenient like that.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Andieee · Jul 12, 2014

I think getting trapped in a dark, enclosed space for an undetermined amount of time might prove scarier than death. Let's say your character finds out that a large amout of money is hidden inside an old building's walls. After looking around all the halls/rooms, the only place remained unsearched is the basement. He finds the money and, just as he prepares to leave the room, the ahead room's ceiling crashes and blocks the entrance, shrinking even more the already small space.
So basically, he's left to die in an extremely tight room just after he finds the money.
I just put all my bets on claustrophobia in this one. There's nothing scarier (for me, at least) than being trapped in a box-like space, with no hope of getting out, where's always dark and without any means of survival.
Also, shooting the thing in an abandoned building wouldn't require that much stress as doing it in a cave.

Ride the Pen · Jul 27, 2014

Thinking as closely as possible to the requirements of your ending, it needs to be a closed off area with a known danger in it, and filming should be possible.

A stone pit comes to mind, with the beforehand known danger of lose rocks or stone avalanches coming down and killing somebody.

A mountain that could be dangerous for many reasons: Rocks, cold, animals, thin air (brain edema,...), landscape (uneven territory, stumbling over a root or pit, breaking one's leg, dying of thirst, etc...).

A wide, dark forest (instals fear in the viewer in an archetypical way...), maybe closed off like a preserve, nobody must enter, which makes it more dangerous and explains why the character must die without help in the end.

The character killed by a wild animal comes to mind (if shootable for you guys), either in that forest or in another closed-off (eg for preservation purposes) area.

Hope this helps.

Komic Brew · Jul 27, 2014

here's two more possible endings, seen from production perspective:

1. shoot in the sewers. It could prove a bit hard for the crew, but you could easily get permission for free. and sewers are always creepy

2. Don't show what happens, show the result. Build the tension so we'd know that something awfull is there. Then, we see the dead guy, or his hair is white and he has gone mad, or something similar.

WeirderSister · Jul 28, 2014

I think Andieee's onto something with the collapsed room in a house idea. Being buried alive is a horror mainstay for a reason--it plays on so many different fears at once, and it can be a super slow way to die, which means you can:

(a) drag the dread out for as long as you want, essentially burying the viewer with the character and letting them experience the horror that way
(b) make it clear to the viewer that this character is buried alive with no way out, and then leave them with that image to fill the rest in on their own

Though if you were really committed to having the end outside, you might be able to pull off something similar with a deep hole in the woods (maybe a grave your character digs up to get at whatever he's looking for?). Speaking from experience, getting stuck down in one of those is pretty unpleasant. And with the right tweaks, it could almost definitely be made unpleasant-er.

But if you're really stuck on an ending in general, and narrative mechanics don't require a particular death in a particular way, I'd recommend going back to the character and working from there. It might help you find an ending that's uniquely suited to your main character and his weaknesses/fears/challenges. IMO, horror is all about character: What's the worst thing that could happen to this person, in particular? Mentally? Emotionally? How can his choices--justified as they may be--lead him inextricably towards that worst case scenario?

Why is the character willing to risk his life for silver that may or may not be down there? Why does he think the risk posed by the environment is worth it? Does he need the money for something important? Does the character have other goals or relationships that might be tied into his search for the silver?

Just some thoughts. Hope this helps!

I need help with my story's ending.

lukewarmwater

Andieee

Potatoes gon' potate.

Ride the Pen

Komic Brew

WeirderSister