A Forseeable End

Not long ago, I was enrolled in a creative writing class. Inarguably my favorite two hours of Tuesday and Thursdays, the class included: Jon Matthews, a classic funnyman, Chad Odom, your typical, semi-obnoxious good friend, Austin Talton, a stereotypical cynic and somewhat apathetic humorist, Matt Woods, an extremely eloquent comic and avid storywriter, Annie Matthews, one of the most unique people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, and a small handful of others, including myself. We'd often write poems short stories, or small sections of such practicing character development and foreshadowing and other things of that sort. Almost without fail, though, every single story would somehow manage to find it's way to the end result of one of the main characters dying. And also, nearly without fail, someone would ask why almost every story ended in death.

There are three basic parts to any given story. The beginning, in which the character is introduced, the setting is given, and other essential things to any story are put forth here. As the plot thickens, you reach the climax, which is the point of greatest tension in a story, calling for action. Finally, you reach a resolution, in which action is taken and the end of the story commences.

As a society, we seem to have drifted away from the now-risible "happy ending." The drastic change from that to the morbidity so commonly see today is most explainable by the fact that the best ending is one that can't be started up again. Movies in which the main character does not die or run off happily, never wishing to return usually result in one to four absolutely atroctious sequels, when we (the audience) would have been perfectly fine with the well-made original.

Death, unlike getting the job/getting the raise/getting married/graduating/becoming world famous/etc. is a pretty definite end. Death will not leave you on the edge of your seat going "buh..! What's he going to do next!?" It won't keep you asking "what if the villain breaks out of jail?!"It won't leave you thinking "what if they get DIVORCED!?!" Your hero is dead. Leave it at that.

To see my view of sequels, click here.