The rule of thumb is that you want your endings to be unpredictable but inevitable. Considering I stole the whole thing from Haldeman's Forever War it is what it is. ;-)
What's the difference between unpredictable and inevitable endings? I know you wrote this 165 days ago.. but I feel the terms are interchangeable. What shade of difference between the two were you hinting at?The rule of thumb is that you want your endings to be unpredictable but inevitable.
So you seen Sixth Sense? We'll presume you have. It's extremely.fucking.obvious that Bruce Willis is dead. Yet when you first start watching it the first time it's the furthest thing from your mind. It is unpredictable, but also inevitable. Toy Story 1 is inevitable - the toys are going to end up back with Andy. Toy Story 2 is inevitable - the girl cowboy is going to end up with Andy's sister. Toy Story 3 is unpredictable but inevitable. Make sense?
OK. The Sixth Sense seems like the perfect example, I get the difference I think.