These have been a few of the purposes and functions of Return. There are also pitfalls to avoid in Returning with the Elixir.
PITFALLS OF THE RETURN
It's easy to blow it in the Return. Many stories fall apart in the final moments. The Return is too abrupt, prolonged, unfocused, unsurprising, or unsatisfying. The mood or chain of thought the author has created just evaporates and the whole effort is wasted. The Return may also be too ambiguous. Many people faulted the twist ending of Basic Instinct for failing to resolve uncertainty about a woman's guilt.
UNRESOLVED SUBPLOTS
Another pitfall is that writers fail to bring all the elements together at the Return. It's common for writers today to leave subplot threads dangling. Perhaps in the hurry to finish and deal with the main characters, the fates of secondary characters and ideas are forgotten about, even though they may be extremely interesting to the audience. Older films tend to be more complete and satisfying because the creators took time to work out every subplot. Character actors could be counted on to do their bit somewhere at the beginning, the middle, and the end. A rule of thumb: Subplots should have at least three "beats" or scenes distributed throughout the story, one in each act. All the subplots should be acknowledged or resolved in the Return. Each character should come away with some variety of Elixir or learning.
TOO MANY ENDINGS
On the other hand, the Return should not seem labored or repetitive. Another good rule of thumb for the Return phase is to operate on the KISS system, that is: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Many stories fail because they have too many endings. The audience senses the story is over but the writer, perhaps unable to choose the right ending, tries several. This tends to frustrate an audience, dissipating the energy the writer has created. People want to know the story's definitively over so they can quickly get up and leave the theater or finish the book with a powerful charge of emotion. An overly ambitious film like Lord Jim, trying to take on a dense novel, can exhaust an audience with climaxes and endings that seem to go on forever.
An extreme example of keeping it simple might be the karate match that forms the climax of The Karate Kid. When the last kick is delivered and the hero wins, the credits roll immediately in a burst of final theme music. There is almost no denouement. We know the kid is bearing the Elixir of lessons learned well in his training.
ABRUPT ENDINGS
A Return can seem too abrupt, giving the sense the writer has quit too soon after the climax. A story tends to feel incomplete unless a certain emotional space is devoted to bidding farewell to the characters and drawing some conclusions. An abrupt Return is like someone hanging up the phone without saying goodbye, or a pilot bailing out without bringing the plane in for a landing.
FOCUS
A Return may feel out of focus if the dramatic questions, raised in Act One and tested in Act Two, are not answered now. Writers may have failed to pose the right questions in the first place. Without realizing it, a writer may have shifted the theme. A tale that started out as a love story may have turned into an expose of government corruption. The writer has lost the thread. The story will not seem focused unless the circle is closed by Returning to the original themes.
PUNCTUATION
The final function of Return is to conclude the story decisively. The story should end with the emotional equivalent of a punctuation mark. A story, like a sentence, can end in only four ways: with a period, an exclamation point, a question mark, or an ellipsis (the three or four little dots that indicate your thoughts have just trailed off vaguely. Example: Do you want to go now, or...).
The needs of your story and your attitude may dictate ending with the feeling of a period, an image or line of dialogue flatly making a declarative statement: "Life goes on." "Love conquers all." "Good triumphs over evil." "That's the way life is." "There's no place like home."
An ending can give the effect of an exclamation point if the intent of the work is to stir action or create alarm. Science fiction and horror films may end on a note of "We are not alone!" or "Repent or perish!" Stories of social awareness may end with a passionate tone of "Never again!" or "Rise up and throw off chains of oppression!" or "Something must be done!"
In a more open-ended approach to structure, you may want to end with the effect of a question mark, and the feeling that uncertainties remain. The final image may pose a question such as "Will the hero Return with the Elixir or will it be forgotten?" An open-ended story may also trail off with the feeling of an ellipsis. Unspoken questions may linger in the air or conflicts may remain unresolved with endings that suggest doubt or ambiguity: "The hero can't decide between two women, and therefore..." or "Love and art are irreconcilable, so..." or "Life goes on... and on... and on..." or "She proved she's not a killer, but..."
One way or another, the very ending of a story should announce that it's all over — like the Warner Bros, cartoon signature line "That's all, folks." Oral storytellers, in addition to using formulas like "...and they lived happily ever after," will sometimes end folktales with a ritual statement like "I'm done, that's that, and who'll ease my dry throat with a drink?" Sometimes a final image, such as the hero riding off into the sunset, can sum up the story's theme in a visual metaphor and let the audience know it's over. The final image of Unforgiven, a shot of Clint Eastwood's character leaving his wife's grave and returning to his house, signals the end of the journey and sums up the story's theme.
These are only a few of the features of Return with the Elixir. As we come full circle, let's leave a little opening for the unknown, the unexpected, the unexplored.
THE WIZARD OF OZ
Dorothy's Return begins with saying goodbye to her Allies and acknowledging the Elixirs of love, courage, and common sense she has gained from them. Then, tapping her heels and chanting "There's no place like home," she wishes herself back to Kansas where she started.
Back home in the Ordinary World, back to black and white, Dorothy wakes up in bed with a compress on her head. The Return is ambiguous: Was the trip to Oz "real" or was it the dream of a girl with a concussion? In story terms, however, it doesn't matter; the journey was real to Dorothy.
She recognizes the people around her as characters from Oz. But her perceptions of them have changed as a result of her experience in the Special World. She remembers that some of it was horrible, some beautiful, but she focuses on what she's learned — there's no place like home. Dorothy's declaration that she will never leave home again is not meant to be taken literally.
It's not this little frame house in Kansas to which she refers, but her own soul. She is a fully integrated person in possession of her best qualities, in control of the worst, and in touch with the positive forms of masculine and feminine energy within her. She has incorporated every lesson she has learned from every being along the road. She is finally happy in her own skin and will feel at home no matter where she is. The Elixir she brings back is this new idea of home, a new concept of her Self.