Writing That Happy Ending

Besides my love of reading and writing, I am an avid movie buff.  I like romance, comedies, political thrillers, mysteries, and historical dramas. In the movie, Atonement, a main character is a thirteen-year-old girl, Briony Tallis played by Saoirse Ronan.  Briony is a young, fledgling writer, and the actual movie is portrayed through Briony’s telling.

It is a story of young, passionate love between Briony’s older sister, Cecilia, played by Keira Knightly, and Robbie, played by James McAvoy.  Briony and Cecelia live a life of wealth and privilege in a grand mansion, and Robbie, although well educated, is the son of the family housekeeper.  Briony has a crush on Robbie, and because of her jealousy, she accuses Robbie of a crime he didn’t commit, irrevocably and tragically changing the course of several lives.

Through the struggles and heartache, it seems the story will eventually have a happy ending.  I breathed a sigh of relief that all would end well for the young sweethearts.  Then an older, mature woman, Briony, confesses to the travesty of her false accusation, and you realize the story does not end happily for Robbie and Cecelia EXCEPT in the story the now well-known writer, Briony, gave to them in a novel she wrote about them. That was her atonement to the young sweethearts she had destroyed.  In her writing, she gave them the happy ending they should've had.  And my apologies right now if you haven’t seen the movie, and I’ve spoiled it for you.

As writers, we have the power to take words and transform them into anything we want.  ANYTHING WE WANT! We can take circumstances and experiences of our own, or those of people we know, and tweak and twist and turn it into a best-selling novel.  What awesome power at our disposal!

 Go, my writer friends, and let your imagination and creative juices flow!