The best stories feel unified. Perhaps the most subtle way to unify a story is to make sure the midpoint and the ending work together.
The midpoint of a story typically represents a temporary high point for the hero. Then everything starts falling apart. In “The Hunger Games”, the midpoint occurs when Katniss talks to Peeta the night before the Hunger Games and Peeta tells her that he doesn’t want the games to change who he is as a person.
Not surprisingly, the ending of “The Hunger Games” forces Katniss and Peeta, as the two sole survivors, to decide whether to fight and try and kill each other, or not, essentially changing who they are. That’s when Katniss decides not to fight and tries to deny the government a winner by having both of them commit suicide instead.
Notice that the midpoint of every good story foreshadows the ending. In “Little Miss Sunshine”, the midpoint occurs when the family stops at a motel and Olive, the hero, practices her routine with her grandfather. While watching this scene, we don’t have a clue what the two of them are doing but in hindsight, we later realize the grandfather was teaching Olive how to act and roar like a stripper.
In the final scene in “Little Miss Sunshine”, we see Olive doing her strip tease dance routine that her grandfather taught her. This strip tease dance is crucial to changing her father’s mind about winners and losers and bringing the whole family together to dance on the stage.
When writing your own screenplay, look for how to foreshadow the ending at the midpoint of your story. While audiences may not consciously realize this connection, it can prove crucial in making your story stronger and more focused.
Sign up to take a FREE course about how to write scenes in a screenplay.
