Fiction devices: Giving away the ending (or what you can learn from Titanic)

November 9, 1:16 PMNY Writing Careers ExaminerTad Richards

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Love Story does it, as mentioned yesterday. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love does it. Titanic famously does it, and that's an interesting case. A cartoonist, at the time of the movie's release, pictured a couple standing in line behind two ten-year-old boys. The husband is saying, "I hear the special effects when the ship goes down are fabulous." One of the boys turns around and says, "Sure, sure -- give away the ending."

But most of us know that the ship goes down. What we don't necessarily know is whether the fictional hero and heroine will survive -- except that the movie tells us that, too, in the prologue sectuon with the centenarian Rose recounting her memories to the entranced salvage crew. Why was that scene there? The performance by the amazing Gloria Stuart as old Rose would have been reason enough (and I'm delighted to see on IMDB that Stuart has worked steadily since Titanic), but there was more to it than that. The movie was not about "What's going to happen?" and any "What's going to happen?" plot would have been a distraction.

I discussed yesterday how Oscar Hijuelos' The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, begins with the old, sick, ugly, disillusioned and dying Cesar Castillo. After the prologue, we meet the young, handsome, musically gifted womanizer who will dominate this great story about Cuban-Americans in the mid-20th century, but always there's that note of sadness in the back of our minds. Titanic almost does the reverse, just as effectively: we know that Rose will lose the love of her life, but that knowledge comes to us through the prism of the rich, fulfilled life that old Rose has led -- we can see it in her face.

What books or movies that give away the ending are particular favorites of yours? Let's discuss a few.