Screenwriting Advice From The Past: The Denouement [Part 1]
By: Scott Myers
Tags: Writing, Hollywood, Movies, Screenwriting, Screenplay

If you are a screenwriter, you should know about Anita Loos. Loos was one of the most influential writers in the early stages of American cinema, associated with 136 film projects per IMDB.

Anita Loos

Married to writer John Emerson, the pair wrote one of the first books on screenwriting in 1920: “How to Write Photoplays”. I have been running a weekly series based on the book. You can access those posts here. Today: The Denouement [P. 90]:

Working up to the denouement, or in other words, the moment of revelation when the audience sees the point of the story, unquestionably the most important part of any photoplay, is something that amateur writers must learn to handle properly. It is the moment when Old Sleuth throws off his false whiskers and declares himself, or when the lovers misunderstanding is cleared up — in short, when the cat jumps out of the bag.

This is a considerably different understanding of denouement that I know and I have found to be the general use in Hollywood. Therefore I thought this would be a good opportunity to consider the term.

Here is one definition: “The final resolution of the intricacies of a plot, as of a drama or novel.” That is in keeping with the Loos & Emerson usage of the term. Then there’s this take:

The denouement is the final outcome of the story, generally occurring after the climax of the plot. Often it’s where all the secrets (if there are any) are revealed and loose ends are tied up. For example, the denouement of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet comes just after the Romeo and Juliet take their own lives. When the families find their dead bodies, Escalus explains that their deaths are a result of the family feud, leaving members of both sides to feel guilty. That is the denouement.

That’s how I understand denouement, the scene after the Final Struggle where the script gives the reader a sense of what the Protagonist’s life will be post-journey.

Here is what TVTropes.org says about denouement [P. 91]:

Dénouement (pronounced day-noo-mahn) is French for “unknotting”, and denotes the point in the story when mysteries are unraveled, fates are determined and explanations made. It is not synonymous with climax: This is the aftermath of the action, not the peak. It is usually the scene after the climax — although it can happen in such close proximity to the events of the climax that it may appear to be part of it. It is fairly ubiquitous, though not all stories have dénouements.

It is usually the scene after the climax. Again this is my understanding of the term and the way I typically hear it referenced in development meetings.

To drive home the difference with Loos & Emerson, check out this other excerpt from this chapter:

Next you must start to work toward this point saving the revelation of what it’s all about until crucial moment of denouement. Your man is stricken with misfortunes until even his heroic resolve seems to be unequal to the task; your characters find themselves in a situation which to require not nine stitches but ninety. In short just when things couldn’t be worse hero or better for the villain, you stage your denouement, and give the turn to the plot which it worth producing.

That sounds to me like the climax, the Final Struggle.

So for takeaway, two points:

A story needs to have a climax, where the trajectory of the Plotline and Themeline, the underlying resolution for both hit a scene or set of scenes where they achieve a resolution.

A story needs to have a beat or a scene after the resolution which brings the narrative back home to visualize what the impact of the adventure has been on the Protagonist.

Whatever you call it — and you can use denouement as a reference — you need that beat after the resolution.

You can read “How to Write Photoplays” via Google books online here.

To read my entire series of posts on highlighting takeaways from the book, go here.

Next week, more screenwriting advice from a century ago.

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