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Hello! Welcome to my weekly newsletter!
Enjoy a dose of my playwriting process,
writing confessions, and all the mess in between.
Well… yes.
My endings suck.
At least in my dirty drafts.
And sometimes, even in my early ones.
After a lot of introspection (and frustration), I’ve figured out why:
When I’m reaching the end of a play, I’m always in a rush to finish it.
It’s like I’ve run a marathon and I just want to skip to the end and collapse at the finish line.
No flourish. No finesse. Just get me there.
Because, let’s be honest, it’s a dirty draft.
I know I’m going to come back and edit the hell out of it later.
So I throw on a rushed ending.
Something functional. Maybe clunky. Maybe incomplete. Definitely incomplete.
A placeholder.
Not quite intentional, but always at the back of my mind.
But here’s the thing:
I’ve learned that endings, real, meaningful, earned endings,
don’t come from first instinct.
They come from editing.
That’s where I shape it.
Where I pay attention.
Where I treat the ending with care. With respect. With patience.
I nurture it.
I earn it.
And only then do I type that last ‘Blackout’.
So when I edit, I ask myself:
Have I earned this moment?
Did the play build toward this, or does it feel like a shortcut?
Did I call back a moment? Did I bring the play full circle?
Is this familiar? Is it foreign?What emotional note am I leaving the audience with?
If you’ve read my plays, you know I hate closure. I hate definite endings.
So I always ask myself, what could audiences hypothesis from this ending?
Then I play out all the possible scenarios. And if there are a number of
possibilities, and I’m happy with that, that’s my ending.Does this ending honour the characters?
Or did I just push them into a resolution to wrap things up? Do they
really feel this way? Or did I just manufacture a moment?Is there one image, one line, one beat that lingers?
Sometimes you don’t need a twist,
sometimes you need something memorable.
What is that thing?Did I end the play, or just stop writing?
There’s a difference. Ask yourself. Really ask yourself.
And if you’re still unsure about the ending,
You know what I like to do.
Gather a few friends, have a reading.
Ask them for their thoughts.
Send your script to others, ask them what they think.
Ask them what they feel.
Sometimes when we’re too close to our writing, we become blinded by the scene or the moment that sometimes, doesn’t make sense to the whole play. And that’s okay.
So the next time you write,
Remember, your first draft’s ending doesn’t need to be perfect.
You will get there.
I promise.
Just. Keep. Writing.
What do you do when it comes to writing your endings?
I’d love to learn from more people!