I am a huge fan of story. Books, movies, games. Anything with story. I have a lot of favourite movies, but one of my favourite movies is Clue, the 1985 film based on the board game of the same name. (Note depending on if you are in the US or AU or UK you might call this same game Cluedo). The game came first (I did fact check!) but this movie is hilarious. Not only is Tim Curry extremely funny he runs around like completely hyperactively and talks super-fast – which I also do when explaining anything. It’s an amusing crime story and I guess was one of the first crime introductions for me as a kid (as I loved playing the game too!)
But my absolute favourite thing about the movie was that there are three different endings. When they first released the movie there were three different end reels and they were sent to different cinemas – my understanding is many people didn’t know about all three endings. I remember telling people about this movie and them saying they didn’t like the ending … to which I asked, did you watch all of them? (By the way I was too young to watch it when it came out, but there was still confusion around it well after the VHS and TV options!)
Now let me take this minute to say I am a children’s and young adult writer. I also do some educational and adult writing and please know when you get one of my books it might be hopeful exciting or encouraging, but I do write for these different age groups. My new reluctant reader, Six Take One, is a novella for teens and contains murder and teens at a party.
Funnily enough when I do events for Riz Chester the kids have often told me to have a murder in my next story, but I really am not such a fan of murder in 10 year old books, so I saved this for my teen novel. So Six Take One, like the movie Clue, is recommended for mature audiences (M) so please be aware this is not a movie for kids.
Back to my point … the three endings in this movie are hilarious and I think are an interesting discussion point. In stories (both books and movies) how many times have we wanted to rewrite an ending. Or extend a story. People are constantly rewriting and adapting books, plus fan fiction is a big thing, because we all want to see our favourite characters have happier endings or different ones, or know what happens next.
One of my friends told me she hated my ending. You know this doesn’t bother me. In fact, I love the feedback.
Firstly, she was invested enough to get to the end. Always a win!
And she was interested enough in my story to form an opinion – you can argue it at book club! I can always learn from criticism as well.
And then it is a huge fun point to then rewrite stories! In fact, in my teacher notes for, Six Take One, I even have a suggestion to “rewrite the ending”. (Teachers click here if you are interested!)
So, if you read my story and would prefer a different ending, you know what … that’s okay. I am open to alternate endings. Maybe one day I will write a book and provide multiple different endings. Then you won’t know which book you are reading …)