A Little Help...

[Trivun]

Okay, I wouldn't normally ask this question on a forum but I'm literally stuck. I claim writer's block when it's simply laziness, but at this point I really do seem to have writer's block. I'm writing a screenplay for a short film that I'd like to enter into a film festival should I ever manage to film it, and I have the entire story for the ten-minute short pinned down. All I need now is an ending, which I can't come up with. This is the same reason, for the record, that this film was never made before when I was trying to do it with some friends a year ago - we got stuck in development hell and the script was changed so many times we never made it to the production stage. So, below is a brief rundown of the plot, hopefully someone can help.

Oh, and be warned - this film is about cousin incest, and in fact I'm doing a fairly controversial thing here (that we didn't agree on in the original planning stages) by making my point that incest is NOT a bad thing. If this offends you then read at your own risk, and don't bother trying to say I'm sick or wrong for my views, because I'll simply ignore and/or report you.

Spoiler: Synopsis

Main group (a younger brother and older sister, and their male slightly older cousin) are walking along a path in the park next to a large hill. It's quiet, but the cousin gets annoyed with the brother for kicking a football around and kicks it down the steep hill, making the brother fetch it (which will take a good while given the filming location). After they argue a little, the brother climbs down and the cousin and sister start talking - she has a go at him for his behaviour, while he reveals his actual reason for what he did - they had a relationship in secret when they were a bit younger (she was 16 at the time, he was 19 - legal ages in the UK, btw), and she split up with him. He's still in love with her and wants to talk things over. After they argue and talk about why she broke up with him, the brother returns and reveals he overheard them. They expect him to be disgusted but instead he reveals that although he finds their relationship weird, he supports them. However, he sides with his sister in that she doesn't want to start the relationship up again. The cousin feels the brother is intruding, and they already don't like each other much, so they end up arguing, which leads to a fight. The sister tries to break up the fight and eventually yells out that she was pregnant with her cousin's child, and had an abortion, which is also the real reason she broke up with him. This shocks and stuns both her cousin and brother, and in the ensuing discussion the cousin tries to persuade her that he could have made a decent father despite the problems with a child being produced via incest, and despite the suspicions it would have raised with her family if she'd had a baby at 16/17. She refutes that and makes it clear once and for all that it's over between them.

The idea I had for ending this was for her to leave her cousin standing there and walk off with her brother, and end on an ambiguous note. However, I'm not sure how well I could write that so it's not an anti-climax, and I want to try and provide at least a small amount of closure while leaving some ambiguity. Thus, what I want from readers of this thread are...

A) Your opinions on the story as it currently stands.
B) Your thoughts on how I can improve the plot and make any decent changes from here.
C) How I can end it without it being crap.

Hopefully by putting this to the community I'll get some decent ideas, and this film can be even better than I already plan to make it!

EDIT: Okay, I know plenty of people will post silly joke answers. That's fine, but could some people at least make an attempt at proper answers too, even alongisde joke ones? Thank you

 

[Axolotl]

I just want to say, if you're going to mae a film about incest at least have the guts to make it brother/sister. Cousins just sounds like you want to do incest but are too afraid to go all the way.

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

I just want to say, if you're going to mae a film about incest at least have the guts to make it brother/sister. Cousins just sounds like you want to do incest but are too afraid to go all the way.

Yeah, go full incest!
FULL INCEST IS FOR THE HARDCORE CROWD!


Now what i would do...
Insert boobies, have a misleading title and a vaguley sexual premise.
Oh wait that's youtube videos...

Not sure really, but if your looking to make a light-hearted comedy, feel free to add Jeremy Kyle to the mix.
Anything with him in is obviously a joke.

Sorry i'm going off topic.
Try doing a few shots with sun-flare.
It makes it look proffesional.

 

[Trivun]

I just want to say, if you're going to mae a film about incest at least have the guts to make it brother/sister. Cousins just sounds like you want to do incest but are too afraid to go all the way.

To be completely fair, we had the cousin idea right from the start. And the whole point of it is that the cousin has been away for a long time and the sister has been avoiding him. Something that wouldn't work with brother/sister unless we made the characters older, which then defeats the purpose of the main plot device.

Controversial opinion time here, but I do actually agree with relationships between siblings, provided it's all safe and consensual and so on. However, in this case, it is simply more logical to have a cousins relationship, purely for the story itself. In other circumstances though, I'd agree with you. I've always been one for pushing boundaries and people's buttons, particularly where art is concerned...

 

[necromanzer52]

The guy falcon punches her down the hill, before riding off on a motorbike, with heavy metal music playing in the background.

That seems like the most logical conclusion.

 

[the spud]

Well first off, how does the brother overhear them? I thought they were on this big, open hill (open enough for the ball to roll down anyway). It seems like they would have seen him coming.

OT: If you had the production valuess, would it interfere with your artistic vision if the brother ended up killing both the sister and the cousin in a fit of rage?

 

[dickywebster]

Done right, sounds like itd do quite well, ignoring people who hear the word incest and deside your the antichrist.
As far as i know its not a hugely explores topic, so go for it, you might be onto the next big thing (relatively speaking) with it now that other originally controversial stuff done in film is by and large accepted.
And not to say incest should be legal, but that its allowed to be addressed more openly and less knee jerk about it been evil and immoral etc.

 

[Trivun]

Well first off, how does the brother overhear them? I thought they were on this big, open hill (open enough for the ball to roll down anyway). It seems like they would have seen him coming.

OT: If you had the production valuess, would it interfere with your artistic vision if the brother ended up killing both the sister and the cousin in a fit of rage?

1. Simple. We scouted the location when we were going to make this a year ago, and I've kept it in mind since. The place is actually a steep valley with a stream at the bottom and a path around the edge going down to the bottom, with trees all around, in Roundhay Park (Leeds, UK). And if you're talking on the path and aren't careful, someone on the valley wall itself can hear you pretty clearly. If someone isn't looking down then it's easy to sneak up, or if you follow the path around instead then you can hide by the corner near where I hope to shoot it.

2. It kind of clashes with how I imagine the character. The way I've developed him, he's a bit of an arrogant stuck-up twat, but he wouldn't use violence or physical force unless really goaded into it, like the brother does in the film. He certainly wouldn't try to kill someone. He's a bit of a dick, but underneath it he's a decent guy at heart. That's part of the reason he wants to get back with the sister, and why he says that he'd have tried to be a good dad, even though he doesn't think about the consequences of a secret baby born from incest.

 

[Knife]

I'm fighting my urge to puke, but here's my honest advice -
It would be better if the brother was already aware of the whole affair, including the pregnancy and the abortion (the overhearing part now serves as "they know he knows they did it"), this way his stance against their relationship and his general animosity towards the cousin aren't because "its incest" or because of personal dislike but because he doesn't want to see the two of them and an innocent baby hurt. And perhaps on a certain level he blames his cousin for the impossible situation he put his sister in.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

Well first off, how does the brother overhear them? I thought they were on this big, open hill (open enough for the ball to roll down anyway). It seems like they would have seen him coming.

maybe they were looking at each other, not where the brother went.

OT: right now, it doesnt seem so bad. i dont think you need help with the ending, just actually writing it.

where are you filming it, because if you're in the central scotland area i know a few perfect places for this.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

For an ending, how bout this: The cousin.......... IS REALLY AN ALIEN!!!

what a tweest

OT: I rather like the story itself. We don't get to see incest in a positive light very often.
In terms of the ending, I would ask this: What do you want the theme to be? Shocking, moving, cute, violent, etc. Once you nail that down, an ending should form.

 

[2xDouble]

Not even gonna look at your synopsis without a writer credit. But I can give you some general advice:

Assuming this is based on a true story, draw further from the source material. What happened there and how did things resolve? did things resolve at all? if not, think on how to convey the unresolved issue while still delivering a satisfying ending point (it's easier than it sounds).

Assuming this is not based on a true story, find yourself a true story or real-life example and adapt it. Look at how people resolve conflicts, especially controversial ones. Look at both the outsider's and insider's perspectives.

Films to consider:
Brokeback Mountain
Juno
Monster's Ball
Straw Dogs (the original)
LA Confidential

Writing to consider:
Pretty much any classic Greek drama.

Consider also:
Metroid: Other M (seriously)
Condemned
Heavy Rain
LA Noire
Catherine