How should your comedy short play or film end? Now you’ve written the script, does it feel like you’ve actually reached an ending at all? Do you need to answer every question or leave some hanging? Should there be a twist or a sting in the tail? Perhaps only if that’s the kind of suspense story you want to write. If it’s a slice of life, it probably ends where the encounter or incident naturally ends.
You can try too hard and make the ending too neat.
A convenient coincidence like all the problems being ended by Earth being wiped out by a falling asteroid is probably too much. Less can be more. Just one character walking away, or a reaction on a face can be big enough. You could also cut abruptly on a punchline or gesture.
I ended a short comedy mystery play where a woman’s partner had disappeared, with a moment after they are reunited where the woman asks, “can you really not remember where you went?” and the partner offering us a wink over her shoulder. The audience don’t find out the true story, as it would be laborious in the telling. The mystery remains a mystery, but there’s been the hint that something was indeed going on.
Another of my short plays started with a man at a police station who has been arrested. The play takes us through the events that lead to this point and then ends back in the first scene.
For an out and out comedy we probably need to leave on a big laugh, probably the pay off – the thing the whole script has been leading up to.
Sometimes though making a decision can be enough as an end.
When I wrote a short romance I ended it with a happy ever after moment, as it’s expected of that genre. Subverting that with an unhappy ending would probably have worked too. If it feels right, it probably is.
