An old article of mine “The Six Deadly Script Sins” has recently resurfaced,  and some of the comments were that writers wanted less about the do’s and don’ts of “presenting” your script to agents / prod co’s  for consideration, but rather they wanted to know about the do’s and don’ts of writing. So, here are my newest Six Deadly Script Sins, only these are about the craft of screenwriting, not the submission process.

1) Have one ending – Jaws ends beautifully.

The end. There’s no more, just one end. There is no need for a tag, and then a tag’s tag, and then a button on the end of the final tag. Just decide what the end of your movie is and commit to it. It’s exhausting trying to navigate more than one proper conclusion. It also makes you seem indecisive and amateurish as a writer.

2) Have an active protagonist – You character should always be doing something. They have to be the catalyst that propels the story forward. Allowing supplemental characters to cause havoc surrounding the main character is good story development and excellent to add plot complications, but you can’t rest on that alone. Set up your protagonist with a singular goal from the outset and have him work towards achieving it the whole script. It will give your protagonist interesting depth as well as create a built in plot device. Also try a MacGuffin if that better suits your needs.

3) If you don’t outline you’ll die. Well not really, but it is serious. Always. Always. Even if by the end of your first draft you’ve completely gone another direction, write the outline anyway. It’s good homework for you to know what the story is. It’s important that you, the writer, understand the full breadth of your characters and the over arching story. An outline is a horrible, tedious thing, but it’s good for you. It’s the brussel sprouts of writing. Just eat them and shut up.

4) Stop worrying about the writing and start worrying about the content. Yes your script should be well written. It should be properly formatted and in the correct font. But that isn’t the end. Your script needs to be concise, visual and above all convey a complete story. Spend less time worrying about how beautifully your action passages read, and think more about the content. You’ll find that you’ll feel less stressed when you realize pretty prose is for novels.

5) Don’t be vanilla. Yes, 90% of movies have the same beats and structure. I know you’re all “But my script…” yeah yeah, no. Your script is the same basic structure as everyone else’s whether you choose to believe it or not. It’s not that your story isn’t special, it’s just that there’s everyone else in the world with a story in their heart that probably touches on some similar beats. What will make you stand out are the details. A utilitarian scene is often necessary to give information or move the story along. That is the perfect time to add weird, quirky details if it’s a comedy. Throw in extra layers to your joke by building in visual references to complement your dialogue. That way you’re effectively hiding the fact that you need this scene to move from A-B, but at least it was interesting and unexpected. That way you’re getting more bang for your buck. I love when you get more for your money. Add the details. It’s worth your time.

6) You’re not Tarantino. You’re not Diablo Cody. You’re not either Gilmore Girl. I don’t care how cool your friends think you are. I don’t care that you once waited on Jane Lynch while you were a cashier  at a Bookstar. You are you and as such you are special. Quit trying to write preciously clever dialogue that is pervasive throughout your whole script. If you have one mouthy teenager who says the coolest, hippest street ever. Awesome. Give her her own voice. She deserves it. But if mouthy teen’s mom, the green grocer, and an alien from Neptune all have the same patois, it grows immediately tiresome. Find a voice unique to each character. Allow each character to be rich and full. Don’t make them spew semi-cool dialogue out of every pore just so you, as a writer, can seem relevant. It’s just totes, lame peeps.

There’s tons more. As I think of them or as people comment I can certainly write more and expand on this as requested.

Well, Bob, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Office Space, mostly because I’ve lost count. And another thing, Bob, I can’t recall a week since I bought the DVD where I didn’t watch it. It is to me as TPS reports were to Peter’s 8 bosses my only reason to live.

Not really, but I do really like the film. I like it because it’s simple and comforting, not necessarily because it’s outstanding. It’s mashed potatoes, it’s mac and cheese, it’s mind meatloaf. It’s plated up with a nice vegetable side. Everything works out for Peter as we hoped. He gets the girl, he gets a job where he’s finally happy, Lumbergh is presumably jobless and the evil Initech empire is reduced to so much a pile of soot. And Milton may not have received a piece of cake or been able to keep his stapler, but he had three hundred thousand of Initech’s dollars and a sunny Mexican beach on which to drink. It was a satisfactory resolution for all of those characters; a “happy ending.”

There are many choices when ending your script, and picking the right one is of paramount importance. In a comedy for example, you need to let the audience know that it’s all going to be okay for the main characters. At the end of a drama, the conflict has most likely been resolved, the emotions are still raw, and you want to capture that intense anguish without beating your audience over the head with a leg of lamb. You want just enough subtlety to tug at your heart, but enough nuance to remain sophisticated.

While, of course, some movies do still employ the classic happy ending, most films now go out of their way to choose simple, clean, quirky endings as a way to shine. It’s a writer’s last chance to send their audience out into the lobby, with a bigger and better smile on their face.

A happy ending, to me, is one in which the protagonist satisfactorily completes his journey and has demonstrated growth as a result. He participates in a conclusion that marks the character’s growth with a hint that his future is going to be okay; that we need not worry because this person whom we’ve become so invested in, will thrive in the next phase of his life.

Recently, I saw 500 Days of Summer. I generally hate romantic comedies. But in this case, I was charmed. I liked the notion of telling the story of “the girl before the girl.” Every man has had their heart broken and it is through that pain that they become the men we marry or couple with. I find the story of the woman that helped make my man the man he is, fascinating. To me, this was a wonderfully quirky ending. Tom moved on. He chose to live and thrive. And then, he meets the girl we’re lead to believe is “the girl.” Tom has a happy ending. A classically happy one? No. But a happy one nonetheless.

Before I saw Tootsie, I felt every movie should end with the hero and the heroine driving off together, into the sky, in a cherry red convertible like Grease.

Instead, the ending is this: Michael and Julie stand on a Manhattan sidewalk on a beautiful spring day. His female persona no longer. Julie asks to borrow Michael’s yellow Halston dress. Being cheeky, he refuses to lend it to her. And so he starts to walk down the street away from the camera and Julie follows protesting, and that’s it. They just keep on walking until they vanish into New York, the end credit music lulling us to the final fade out.

Oh what a revelation! You mean to tell me, endings didn’t have to be a magical, Disney-wedding, extravaganza, in 3-D, on ice in order to sell the simple idea of love? It seemed preposterous, yet also plausible.  It doesn’t have to be wrapped up in a nice neat  bow.

When Boogie Nights came out, I was a big fan right from the get go. I’ll never forget leaving the theater, with my mother. (Yes, it was sort of awkward.) We got into the biggest fight over the ending. I felt that it was a happy ending. Dirk was back together with Amber and Jack and Roller Girl and even though he was doing porn, it felt to me that Dirk had come “home.” He was a sad kid looking for parents and in a sick way, Amber and Jack filled that void. Roller Girl was like the sister he never had and while none of them were actually related, and they were all screwing each other on film, they were a support system who loved and cared for each other. These loners in the world, for them all to come together to be happy as a “family” seemed sweet, in an albeit creepy sort of way. That ending to me is both a happy and satisfying one and it is an excellent use of a non-traditional happy ending.

SPOILER ALERT! Fight Club, I would call that a happy ending too. Tyler became whole and he created an army and finally earned the respect his life so profoundly lacked. He got the girl, and his plan succeeded. That’s a happy ending. As those buildings fall down, Tyler takes Marla’s hand as the Pixies play and you just know, everything is going to be okay. How the hell it is? I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Chuck Palanhuik about that one. But for my money, that’s a happy ending.

Think about Shaun of the Dead, he gets the girl and his best pal, who’s really not that much worse for the wear even though he’s now a zombie. The Sound of Music, the Von Trapps might be on the run from the Nazis but they’re climbing every mountain together, headed for a better do-ray-mi-tomorrow. There Will Be Blood, when Daniel Plainview was done smashing Eli’s face in with a bowling pin, he was his happiest and he was done!

The Royal Tennenbaums ended with a funeral and a wedding but it was still a happy ending. It showed a family reunited, idiosyncrasies healed and lives put back on track. A Clockwork Orange totally has a non-traditional, happy ending. Alex is cured! What a brave new life is in store for Alex, filled with the old in-out, ultra-violence and Ludwig Van.

I always want a happy ending for my characters, even if the choices those characters have to make are hard ones. I want to know as a writer and as an audience member participating in another writer’s story that these people I have invested my time and my love into, are going on to better journeys that just haven’t yet been written. It gives me hope, even in their bittersweet parting and that satisfies me. That’s a happy ending.

So as you’re closing your film, think about subtlety, think about nuance. Reconceive a touch of the hand, a walk down the street, a long zoom out, whatever you choose to make your ending happy, make sure you make it fresh, twist it around and stand it on its head. It’s both stand out and delightful for your audience. Not every movie needs to end with a giant wedding cementing the characters’ fate, being clever and inventive is exciting. Sometimes, all you need is to show your characters finding a red stapler in the rubble of a once proud software company to perfectly articulate that “it’s all going to be okay.”