Dark, alternative endings

[EmilyMiller]

Just finished a relatively lengthy piece (for me). It has a number of twists and turns. It’s already dark in places. While writing the last two chapters, I had this even darker idea, basically that two of the “good guys” are actually “bad guys” including the FMC.

I ultimately rejected it as a) I hadn’t really telegraphed it at all and I didn't want to rework the story, b) it seemed a bit deus ex machina, c) it felt like a twist too far, and d) I kinda liked the FMC and wanted a nicer ending.

But have you had similar thoughts, and even followed through on them?

Emily

 

[AlinaX]

I do know I get upset with films that have twists at the end that leave me thinking the director is just taking the piss.

 

[mildlyaroused]

I've had similar ideas but, as you mentioned, it has to be thematically appropriate. I don't like those sorts of final twists which don't add anything substantial other than surprise or shock, so if I come up with them halfway through writing I usually don't follow through unless I'm prepared to rework the rest of the piece so everything gels thematically.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Just finished a relatively lengthy piece (for me). It has a number of twists and turns. It’s already dark in places. While writing the last two chapters, I had this even darker idea, basically that two of the “good guys” are actually “bad guys” including the FMC.

I ultimately rejected it as a) I hadn’t really telegraphed it at all and I didn't want to rework the story, b) it seemed a bit deus ex machina, c) it felt like a twist too far, and d) I kinda liked the FMC and wanted a nicer ending.

But have you had similar thoughts, and even followed through on them?

Emily

Darkness needs gloom along the way, I reckon. A twist should be in the cloth in the first place, not popped on at the end. Two stories needed, I reckon.

 

[Bamagan]

I often start out with very dark endings and then look for ways to lighten them.
Maybe that's why so many feature milk. Catastrophe au lait.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I do know I get upset with films that have twists at the end that leave me thinking the director is just taking the piss.

Yeah - that’s what I wanted to avoid

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I want to read your alternate ending! That is exactly the kind of twist I love!

 

[EmilyMiller]

I want to read your alternate ending! That is exactly the kind of twist I love!

It felt too artificial to me - I’d already had quite a few cliff-hangers and major twists and things not being what they seemed. Felt a bit like I would be trying too hard.

When it’s edited / published, feel free to do a @Bazzle and write your own alternative

Emily

 

[AchtungNight]

The only time I’ve ever enjoyed a twist ending like you describe is in M Night Shayamalan’s Unbreakable and that had plenty of hints where things made sense. Usually such endings don’t make sense to me, thus my dislike for them. Needless to say, I haven’t written one and probably never will. But I’m open to it if I could pull it off as well as MNS did.

 

[Dark_Logan_]

As the monicker suggests I don’t shy away from a dark or taboo ending/twist

I like to leave the story hanging on a good old fashioned WTF?!?!

 

[MrPixel]

Call me an unrealistic romantic fantacist. I hate dark endings. Everybody in my distorted universe rides off into the sunset happy and satisfied, and looking forward to the next day's adventures. The Fun Shall Not End.

It's why I can't deal with Tom Hanks movies like Cast Away and Forrest Gump, and a whole bunch of other modern films where the hero is a good person yet despite his best efforts loses the love of his life.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've thought about it. I think it can be great to make the main character turn out to be bad at the end. But it's best if you at least subtly foreshadow it during the story.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I've thought about it. I think it can be great to make the main character turn out to be bad at the end. But it's best if you at least subtly foreshadow it during the story.

It was too jarring for my story, felt like a cheap shock.

Emily

 

[SavannaT]

Yeah, my stories are typically about married women who are seduced or pressured into cheating, in one or two the seducer basically offs the hubby to keep the wife to themselves, it turned me on but felt a bit dark.

 

[AchtungNight]

Call me an unrealistic romantic fantacist. I hate dark endings. Everybody in my distorted universe rides off into the sunset happy and satisfied, and looking forward to the next day's adventures. The Fun Shall Not End.

It's why I can't deal with Tom Hanks movies like Cast Away and Forrest Gump, and a whole bunch of other modern films where the hero is a good person yet despite his best efforts loses the love of his life.

Agreed. I dislike that sort of crud even more than dark twisted endings. Good people should persevere and receive deserved rewards. I know it’s not always so in reality, but fiction is a playground. So let us have fun!

Note- not everyone in my fictional universe earns happy endings. There are bad guys who get the opposite. They earn deserved rewards too.

 

[RetroFan]

Just finished a relatively lengthy piece (for me). It has a number of twists and turns. It’s already dark in places. While writing the last two chapters, I had this even darker idea, basically that two of the “good guys” are actually “bad guys” including the FMC.

I ultimately rejected it as a) I hadn’t really telegraphed it at all and I didn't want to rework the story, b) it seemed a bit deus ex machina, c) it felt like a twist too far, and d) I kinda liked the FMC and wanted a nicer ending.

But have you had similar thoughts, and even followed through on them?

Emily

Hi Emily - the question I always ask myself before writing a twist ending is - 'Does this betray my readers/audience?'

One of the dumbest twists like this is of course the dreaded 'it was all a dream' ending. Yet some successful TV shows have actually done this, believe it or not. There was a 1990s English sitcom called 'The Brittas Empire' that ended this way, and a long-running UK soap opera 'Crossroads' also ended with the dream ending in the early 2000s. Then of course there was Rosanne's infamous late 1990s ending, where it was revealed that some, but not all of the more recent stories in the sitcom were just made up, others inaccurate and others 100% correct. It was kind of a mess, and only made worse when the TV show was rebooted in the late 2010s.

I personally like writing twists in my stories, and have a number of them, which have attracted many different reactions. I had one in my recent April Fool's day story, but the IT readers didn't care for it. One thing I agree on though for twists such as dead all along or hidden villain is that you need some subtle clues so that when the twist is revealed it makes sense in hindsight.

I've done 'dead all along', where a female character in one of my stories presented as a platonic younger female friend of the main male protagonist is in fact his late fiancee, who died 16 years earlier. In this story I threw in subtle clues about this, such as no other characters talking to or even noticing her, her wearing late 1990s/early 2000s clothes (she died in 2001) in a story set in 2017, she doesn't use a mobile phone and she seems to flash in and flash out of the story, suddenly appearing then going again just as fast.

To date, I haven't had a hidden villain story (although I may well write one) but one great example is the movie Ghost from 1990 where this is really done well. There are two bad guys, one who is openly evil and the other who is hidden. The hidden villain is presented as a really nice guy, but there are some subtle clues before the reveal that make sense when the twist comes through. He drives a very expensive sports car, way out of his pay grade for his occupation. Sam tells him - and only him - about the odd transactions in some accounts at the bank where they both work before his (Sam's) death. While he seems very supportive of Molly after Sam dies, his questions with hindsight can be seen as him subtly digging for information. He appears very stressed in one scene and Molly is concerned, but he says that he is having a hard time dealing with Sam's death (which may actually be true given what we find out).

Hope you have some luck writing plot twists in future stories.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

And yet the best ending to a TV show ever (Bob Newhart) was when Bob Newhart woke up next to Suzanne Pleshett and said, "I just had the strangest dream."

 

[karina_jayde]

I toyed with this during the finale of my Duchess of Lust series. The FMC is a noblewoman trying to defend her home from barbarians (the ruler of which she slept with as part of peace negotiations to buy her homeland some time). As I wrote the finale leading up to the final battle with the invaders, a part of me wondered about a darker alternative, where she lost and was taken as the conquering king's concubine.

I decided against it, but I kind of played it both ways, via a prophetic magical ritual in the story that showed a potential future for her as the king's prize. So I sort of had my cake and ate it, too: getting the 'good' ending while hinting at a worse outcome.

 

[intim8]

But have you had similar thoughts, and even followed through on them?

Not an ending, but my Aces series goes from light and happy, if a bit moody, to dark in the space of a paragraph, and the next 22K words are the MC and others trying to deal with what he did.

I was surprised when it happened as any reader would be. But I stuck with it because it was a really good fit with the character.

 

[intim8]

some successful TV shows have actually done [the it-was-all-a-dream ending],

The Gold Standard for it was the Newhart series. Not the one where he was a shrink, the one where he ran a small hotel. The "I'm Larry, this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl" one.

Exectuted as perfectly as it can possibly be done. Even took the live studio audience totally by surprise, and probably got the first standing ovation from a sitcom audience ever.

 

[gopackgo1973]

Yeah, my stories are typically about married women who are seduced or pressured into cheating, in one or two the seducer basically offs the hubby to keep the wife to themselves, it turned me on but felt a bit dark.

Where can I find your stories?? I would love to read them.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Where can I find your stories?? I would love to read them.

It wasn’t very hard to find, TBH…

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=6315284&page=submissions

Emily

 

[VallesMarineris]

a) I hadn’t really telegraphed it at all and I didn't want to rework the story, b) it seemed a bit deus ex machina, c) it felt like a twist too far, and d) I kinda liked the FMC and wanted a nicer ending.

There are plenty of mysteries and thrillers, both written and filmed, that have big twists at the end that can be satisfying. But in those genres the reader/viewer knows the rules of the genre and is suspecting everyone in the room of being the murderer, or is ready to jump when the creepy villain pops up grinning in a window. I'm thinking of Red Notice, a film I recently watched, which has twists per minute, or any Alfred Hitchcock movie.

But if your audience isn’t primed for the twist, they’ll feel confused and a bit ripped off. Aliens bursting on the scene in a flying saucer could be perfectly welcome in a sci-fi movie; they added an amusing interlude in Monty Python’s Life of Brian; but if you saw them land on stage in a remake of A Star is Born— you get the idea.

 

[EmilyMiller]

There are plenty of mysteries and thrillers, both written and filmed, that have big twists at the end that can be satisfying. But in those genres the reader/viewer knows the rules of the genre and is suspecting everyone in the room of being the murderer, or is ready to jump when the creepy villain pops up grinning in a window. I'm thinking of Red Notice, a film I recently watched, which has twists per minute, or any Alfred Hitchcock movie.

But if your audience isn’t primed for the twist, they’ll feel confused and a bit ripped off. Aliens bursting on the scene in a flying saucer could be perfectly welcome in a sci-fi movie; they added an amusing interlude in Monty Python’s Life of Brian; but if you saw them land on stage in a remake of A Star is Born— you get the idea.

Yeah it did’t fit the story. The ending I went with did. It still had a twist, but not a wrenching one.

Emily

 

[EmilyMiller]

Hi Emily - the question I always ask myself before writing a twist ending is - 'Does this betray my readers/audience?'

One of the dumbest twists like this is of course the dreaded 'it was all a dream' ending. Yet some successful TV shows have actually done this, believe it or not. There was a 1990s English sitcom called 'The Brittas Empire' that ended this way, and a long-running UK soap opera 'Crossroads' also ended with the dream ending in the early 2000s. Then of course there was Rosanne's infamous late 1990s ending, where it was revealed that some, but not all of the more recent stories in the sitcom were just made up, others inaccurate and others 100% correct. It was kind of a mess, and only made worse when the TV show was rebooted in the late 2010s.

I personally like writing twists in my stories, and have a number of them, which have attracted many different reactions. I had one in my recent April Fool's day story, but the IT readers didn't care for it. One thing I agree on though for twists such as dead all along or hidden villain is that you need some subtle clues so that when the twist is revealed it makes sense in hindsight.

I've done 'dead all along', where a female character in one of my stories presented as a platonic younger female friend of the main male protagonist is in fact his late fiancee, who died 16 years earlier. In this story I threw in subtle clues about this, such as no other characters talking to or even noticing her, her wearing late 1990s/early 2000s clothes (she died in 2001) in a story set in 2017, she doesn't use a mobile phone and she seems to flash in and flash out of the story, suddenly appearing then going again just as fast.

To date, I haven't had a hidden villain story (although I may well write one) but one great example is the movie Ghost from 1990 where this is really done well. There are two bad guys, one who is openly evil and the other who is hidden. The hidden villain is presented as a really nice guy, but there are some subtle clues before the reveal that make sense when the twist comes through. He drives a very expensive sports car, way out of his pay grade for his occupation. Sam tells him - and only him - about the odd transactions in some accounts at the bank where they both work before his (Sam's) death. While he seems very supportive of Molly after Sam dies, his questions with hindsight can be seen as him subtly digging for information. He appears very stressed in one scene and Molly is concerned, but he says that he is having a hard time dealing with Sam's death (which may actually be true given what we find out).

Hope you have some luck writing plot twists in future stories.

Yeah, I don’t often think about the audience - it probably shows in my ratings.

Emily