Wow, this week on Downton Abbey gave me a whole bunch more to write about!

DISCLAIMER: If you don’t want a spoiler, make sure you are up to date on the episodes.

The class I taught in Chicago earlier this month was “Great Beginnings and Edge-of-the-Seat Ends”. One problem with endings that don’t capture the readers attention and keep them turning the pages is using the same hook time after time. I’m running into this with book 2 of Women of Courage. The last half of the book takes place in Berlin in the final days of WWII when there were bombings almost constantly. And I have a whole bunch of chapters that end with air raid sirens. Something I have to change.

I fear that Downton Abbey is falling into this same trap. They have killed off something like 16 characters already. Yikes! Matthew was doomed from the beginning. Will any of them survive?

There is a problem with visual media that we don’t run into with print media. We don’t have characters who want to leave. The producers of Bewitched will tell you two Darrins didn’t work very well. Yes, Julian Fellows had to write Matthew out somehow. He was rather limited in his options. The thing is that viewers grow tired of mourning over dead characters. Yes, it will shake up things. Yes, there will be new tensions. But how often are they going to use the same out?

It’s easy to use the same ending over and over, especially if it worked the first 15 times. The challenge as a writer comes in when we need to find new situations to put our characters in. It stretches us and forces us to grow. In the long run, it makes the story better.

 

As a watcher/reader, how do you feel about the choice to kill Matthew? As a writer, what are your thoughts? Either: what other way could they have found to write out Matthew?