...or cheating the reader?
i was wondering what the general consensus was on leaving a scene unresolved.
here's an off-the-cuff example...
INT. LABORATORY - NIGHT
Jack looks at his watch: 2 AM. He grabs the testtube filled with the bright orange liquid and is about to pour it into the percolating beaker of green when
JILL (o.s.)
Dammit Jack. Don't do it.
Jack turns around and sees Jill in her low cut party dress and high heels enter the lab.
JACK
It's our only chance.
He pours and the orange mixes with the green, and the heat from the reaction gets very intense, bubbles pop and steam billows. Colors swirl orange and green, becoming purple and red, becoming yellow and black, and finally, a deep blue. The boiling stops, the steam lifts, revealing a scared Jack as he raises the flask to his mouth.
JILL
No. It's not. There has to be another way.
JACK
I guess that means you weren't able to get the information then.
Jill looks away, her face turned down in despair, her quiet answers Jack.
Jack stares into the open mouth of the flask, into the deep blue liquid.
EXT. LABORATORY - NIGHT
Jill runs out. Screaming.
JILL
OHMYGOD! SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP ME!
______
so obviously, I leave the reader with the impression that jack drank the blue stuff...but i don't say what happened. from the next scene, the reader knows something bad happened. really bad. and the reader is curious as hell to find out what. you'd better believe that page is turning fast, and the reader wants some kind of clue as to what happened.
now, here's my Q: did i cheat the reader by leaving the scene unresolved, by not saying jack drank the blue stuff, that he bounced around the walls, that his hair turned silver and grew out two feet and his face grew oblong, and then he dropped lifeless onto the floor? (or whatever else the reader imagined might have happened).
because it is so possible to write an entire screenplay like this, leaving unresolved cliffhangers leading into the next unresolved cliffhanger and on and on until the end, when you do finally resolve it (which would be fade out).
if this kind of method is employed, trust me, you'd flip through the screenplay like your life depended on it...but would you feel cheated at the end...or not?
i was wondering what the general consensus was on leaving a scene unresolved.
here's an off-the-cuff example...
INT. LABORATORY - NIGHT
Jack looks at his watch: 2 AM. He grabs the testtube filled with the bright orange liquid and is about to pour it into the percolating beaker of green when
JILL (o.s.)
Dammit Jack. Don't do it.
Jack turns around and sees Jill in her low cut party dress and high heels enter the lab.
JACK
It's our only chance.
He pours and the orange mixes with the green, and the heat from the reaction gets very intense, bubbles pop and steam billows. Colors swirl orange and green, becoming purple and red, becoming yellow and black, and finally, a deep blue. The boiling stops, the steam lifts, revealing a scared Jack as he raises the flask to his mouth.
JILL
No. It's not. There has to be another way.
JACK
I guess that means you weren't able to get the information then.
Jill looks away, her face turned down in despair, her quiet answers Jack.
Jack stares into the open mouth of the flask, into the deep blue liquid.
EXT. LABORATORY - NIGHT
Jill runs out. Screaming.
JILL
OHMYGOD! SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP ME!
______
so obviously, I leave the reader with the impression that jack drank the blue stuff...but i don't say what happened. from the next scene, the reader knows something bad happened. really bad. and the reader is curious as hell to find out what. you'd better believe that page is turning fast, and the reader wants some kind of clue as to what happened.
now, here's my Q: did i cheat the reader by leaving the scene unresolved, by not saying jack drank the blue stuff, that he bounced around the walls, that his hair turned silver and grew out two feet and his face grew oblong, and then he dropped lifeless onto the floor? (or whatever else the reader imagined might have happened).
because it is so possible to write an entire screenplay like this, leaving unresolved cliffhangers leading into the next unresolved cliffhanger and on and on until the end, when you do finally resolve it (which would be fade out).
if this kind of method is employed, trust me, you'd flip through the screenplay like your life depended on it...but would you feel cheated at the end...or not?
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