Week 15 of the “2 Scripts in 2024” Challenge
Week 1 – Concept
Week 2 – Solidifying Your Concept
Week 3 – Building Your Characters
Week 4 – Outlining
Week 5 – The First 10 Pages
Week 6 – Inciting Incident
Week 7 – Turn Into 2nd Act
Week 8 – Fun and Games
Week 9 – Using Sequences to Tackle Your Second Act
Week 10 – The Midpoint
Week 11 – Chill Out or Ramp Up
Week 12 – Lead Up To the “Scene of Death”
Week 13 – Moment of Death
Week 14 – The Climax
At the start of the year, we said we were going to write a script. This week, that dream becomes a reality. Because if you’ve been following the schedule I’ve laid out every Thursday, you are just 10 pages away from typing “FADE OUT.”
Technically speaking, these should be the easiest pages you’ve written all script. Chances are, you finished the climax last week. Or, if your climax bleeds into the final 10 pages, you’ve already got momentum going from last week so finishing up should be a cake walk.
But one thing I didn’t talk about last week, and something that’s likely to come up at the end of your climax, is THE CHOICE.
Last week was all about structuring your ending like a miniature movie – giving it that first act, second act, and third act.
However, there is something going on concurrently with that, which is the conclusion to your main character’s (or main supporting character’s) arc. Remember, at the beginning of your script, you will have created a character with a gigantic weakness. This weakness is known in some circles as “the fatal flaw.” It is the flaw that’s holding your character back in life – that’s keeping them from finding happiness.
Most flaws exist inside a person’s blind spot. That’s because a flaw is as much of who you are as any other attribute. So you don’t think of it as a weakness. It’s just “who you are.” You may be selfish, stubborn, a procrastinator, a coward, impulsive, a cynic, or indecisive, and have no idea.
I remember the first time somebody assigned a character flaw to me, telling me I was a perfectionist. I said, “What are you talking about? I’m not a perfectionist.” They then proceeded to give me five active examples of my perfectionism. I honestly had zero idea that was a flaw of mine until that moment.
So, most of the time, your hero won’t know their flaw. We, the writer will know it. Almost everyone who knows your hero will know it. But your hero won’t truly recognize this as a flaw until the climax. Until they’re faced with a CHOICE within the climax that gives them the option of either…
a) Continue to live their flawed life.
b) Overcome their flaw and change.
Interestingly enough, the answer isn’t always “b.” Sometimes your character will choose “a.” When they do, though, a price must be paid. You can’t have your hero remain flawed and not pay a price. So, in tragedies, the hero is given the big choice at the end, they choose to remain the same, and they usually die as a result.
But let’s get back to how this affects our ending.
You want to create a choice in the final “battle,” where the hero can either keep doing what they’ve always been doing or they can change. Keep in mind, that if you do this well, it will be the most powerful moment in your entire screenplay. This is the moment that is going to give your audience the feels. This is the moment where you can make people cry.
Three of the most common flaws that pop up around this time are: cowardice, selfishness, and a lack of belief in one’s self. So, you’d write a choice into the ending where the hero could either continue to be a coward or finally show bravery. We see this with George McFly in Back to the Future when he finally stands up to Biff and punches him in the face to save Lorraine.
In The Matrix, Neo has spent the entire movie not believing in himself. He doesn’t believe he’s “The One.” He’ll get into little spats with the agents but, at the end, he does what the group tells him to do – RUN. So in that final climactic moment where he gets cornered by the agents in a hallway, he has his CHOICE built around his flaw: He can continue not to believe in himself and run away. Or he can believe in himself and face the agents head on. Guess what he does?
Who’s the most selfish character in the original Star Wars? It’s Han Solo. He has a choice at the end of that movie. He can take the money and leave his allies high and dry or he can stay and fight and help them destroy the Death Star. In the end, his choice is to come back, shoot down Darth Vader, which allows Luke a clear shot at the Death Star.
That moment – that moment where the Millennium Falcon appears at the very last second to shoot down Darth Vader’s ship before Vader can take out Luke – is one of the single most exciting moments in movie history.
And the REASON that is is because it’s coming on the heels of a major character transformation. That’s the power that an expertly executed climactic character transformation can accomplish. That’s why this formula is so important.
I talk to so many writers who treat the act of finding a character flaw for their protagonist to be some kind of burden. They know that it’s something screenwriting books tell them they have to do and that’s the only reason they do it. But this is WHY you want to integrate a character flaw. It’s FOR CREATING MOMENTS LIKE THE ABOVE with Han Solo.
Cause you can’t create emotional beats in your climax if you haven’t set up any character transformations to happen. You can still come up with decent endings, especially if you’re good at plotting and paying off setups, which all good endings do. But if you want to come up with that ending that hits the reader in the gut, figure out a character flaw at the beginning of your writing process, explore that flaw throughout the movie, then pay it off here in the climactic scene.
It’s easy to forget that a movie should be an emotional experience. Viewers want to connect with the people leading them through the story. And just like we, as real-life people, like to see our friends and family overcome their weaknesses and become successful in life, so do we want to see these new “friends” of ours – these movie characters – overcome their flaws and become successful.
Movies really are a metaphor for life. That 2-hour experience feels like we’re living a life with these characters. So if you do your job, we will connect with and care about those characters, and want to see them win in the end. But not just win. CHANGE. When they change for the better, that’s what gets the feels flying into fifth gear.
After you finish your climax, it’s up to you how many more scenes you want to write. But the general rule is that you don’t want to stick around much longer. The viewer will start to get restless. They came here to see the main character win. The main character won. So they’re ready to leave. Some movies (Rocky) will end right there! But it’s okay to wrap up a few character relationships if you need to. I would say try to get out of your script after the climax within three scenes.
Time to bring the torch home!
We will celebrate next week after you’ve completed your script.
Then we can talk about rewriting.
It’s going to be a BLAST. :)
