That's ironic: endings that don't have to be - Rowena House

This post is a bit of a cheat as basically I’m repurposing an ABBA article I wrote a while back – and re-found via Twitterific Writing Links, an excellent compendium of free writing advice compiled by elizabethspanncraig.com – to wonder out loud about how to repurpose classic ironic endings to serve the work-in-progress.

The reason I need to cheat is the fast-approaching end of a brilliant online plotting course run by USA story consultant Jeff Lyons, which I’m desperate to get the most out of. More of that another time...

The nub of today’s post is WHICH ironic endings might make good scene or act turning points?

Here’s the link to the original post about endings:

https://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com/2019/08/endings-part-i-where-to-start-by-rowena.html

And here’s a summary:

Storytelling craft guides broadly agree there are four main types of endings for archetypal plots, i.e. those with one or more lead character with a defined story goal.

A positive ending is one where the protagonist achieves their goal and is happy about it, a staple for romances, for example.

A negative ending is one where the protagonist does NOT get what they want and is sad/angry/devastated about it. Or dead – and not in a nice, self-sacrificing way, either. Think Shakespeare’s King Lear, Macbeth etc.

Ambiguous or open endings leave the reader guessing whether the protagonist got what they wanted (if it’s clear what that was) and tend to be found in short stories and towards the literary end of the novel spectrum.

Ironic endings: our starting point today.

The 'character knows what they want but not what they need' ironic plot is now so popular in storytelling guides it’s hard to know if it’s a cliché or a convention. Yes, this type of irony can be powerful – Shakespeare’s Othello learns he had what he wanted all along, a loyal wife in Desdemona, but only after he’s killed her in his unwarranted jealous rage – but a want/need dichotomy is so far from original, I wonder if it still deserves its primacy in plotting manuals.

Other classic examples of ironic endings include a protagonist who:

· Gets what they want, only to find it wasn’t worth the getting (a variant on the positive ending).

· Doesn’t get what they want, but is glad about it due their transformation wrought by the story’s events (riffing on the negative ending).

· Realises they’ve thrown away the very thing/person that could have made them happy (see Othello above); a variant of which is,

· Realising they’ve rejected the person who could have been their friend/ally/true love in favour of someone who isn’t.

· Being destroyed by the person/thing they’ve set out to destroy.

· Discovering a deeply held belief is a lie.

· Discovering an ally is an enemy and vice versa,

Of these ironies, some lend themselves more obviously than others to twists and turning points before the final battle and/or resolution.

The false-ally-as-unknown-enemy is a well-worn device which could set up the climax of any sequence where the false ally betrays the protagonist, although, as with its inverse (enemy-turned-ally), it needs to be fairly deep into the story, with a convincing build up, to work dramatically. If we hadn’t been convinced Severus Snape was a death eater (spoiler alert) his sacrifice to save Harry Potter wouldn’t have been a shocking character revelation as well as significant plot action.

Discovering you’ve deeply believed in a lie would also need to have had profound negative consequences for the protagonist on the page before it would work as a meaningful epiphany, so that kind of ironic reveal might work best as a midpoint crisis or dark night of the soul.

More broadly, coming face-to-face with any cruel irony at the close of Act 2 could be the shocking revelation which precipitates the final crisis decision and climax in Act 3, including ‘getting what you want, only to find it wasn’t worth the getting’.

In that vein, I’m trying to remember the name of a 1950s romantic comedy where the hero got exactly what he wanted at the worst point/doom moment. His wedding was the point he realised that what he’d strived for all along (a rich wife) was a disaster because he'd fallen in love with a poor beauty. From memory, it might have been Tony Curtis marrying the rich woman when he’d fallen in love with a poor  Sophia Loren. Ring any bells? Anyway, I’m sure it’s been done since then, too.

And there must be a romance plot out there where Othello susses Iago at the last minute and stabs him, not Desdemona, and the couple lives happily-ever-after.

Being destroyed by the thing you set out to destroy sounds familiar from action stories. I’m thinking about a commander killed in action, whose death flips their battalion from defeatism to a commitment to win.

What about the protagonist who doesn’t get what they want, but is glad about it due the transformation wrought by the story’s events? Not sure how that can be anything other than an ending, but maybe with time its potential as a twist might become apparent.

Ironically, the more I write this blog the more I realise that nothing I’m saying here is original. Which is roughly where I am with the seventeenth century work-in-progress: at some point in the past fifteen years of writing and studying fiction, I’ve almost certainly come across the answer to every problem I’m having with its plot; it’s just a matter of tracking down the right answer.

Going back over old ABBA posts is about to become a habit.

Happy writing!

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