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(un)happy endings
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I must admit I'm one of those people who like happy endings. There's so much darkness in the real world that I prefer my entertainment to show me that happiness and love and the good guys winning is all possible. It all depends on one's worldview, I suppose, as well. One of my favorite writers is Dean Koontz, and he's known for setting up very dark, no-win scenarios and then having the good guys win anyway. Some people hate that, and to those people I say, alrighty then, go read Stephen King.As to what "sells," that's a silly way to approach writing. You have to create stories that fit with YOUR worldview; otherwise YOU won't believe them and, trust me, we readers can tell.
I recently read A Clockwork Orange in its original edition. There's an extra chapter in that edition that is "sort of" a happy ending. It was interesting and confirmed the main premise of the book. I don't want to give spoilers to anyone who hasn't seen the movie, but basically that last chapter is missing from the movie. The reason is that the publishers cut off the last chapter for the US edition because they felt Americans were in the mood for "dark" at the time and would not accept a happy ending. Kubrik only read the US edition and made the movie based on it. It obviously was very successful, but, to me, hugely unsatisfying, unlike the original book. My point is, the author should tell the story he's intended to tell, not what people want to hear; otherwise, why bother writing?
As a reader, I will go along with wherever an author takes me, so long as the story stays true to the characters; or rather, so long as the characters are consistent with their choices within the story so that the ending makes sense, regardless if it's happy or not. I think "Happy endings" are really for TV shows and movies, which are designed to make people feel good about wasting their time in front of the TV or the expensive tickets they just bought along with the overpriced popcorn and soda.
But real novels and stories...they end the way they need to end, even if it means breaking the reader's heart or lifting their spirits or angering them with the injustice of it all.
Story is all that matters.
Write your story the way it needs to be written, and let people take it or leave it as they will.
your happy happy ending would be to win the game and to somehow defeat his other self. another possibility would be that he changes the game itself that both of them aren't forced to play it anymore. like fighting the regime together and winning of course.a happy ending for me (see that i only use one happy here...) would be that he wins the game and somehow gets ride of his other self, even if it means to kill himself. the main purpose he does everything is to save his family right? if thats the case, every ending in which he accomplish that would be a happy ending in my understanding.
Another interesting (and happy) ending would be that the Other gets somehow absorbed back into the MC personality. They are basically two parts of the same person, right? So they could be put back together. So no one has to die, BUT our hero now has to be forever vigilant about not letting the Other take control. I'm thinking kind of like the Angel TV show. You can also have sequels that way LOL.
I think a realistic ending is the best, no matter happy or sad. As long as its a logic outcome of the story. Personally, I like endings which have both sad and happy elements. Like the problems has been solved, but at a cost.
Wow.. I mentioned I know other ways to end my story than the one I'll use, but I must admit you guys gave me some new ideas now ^^ I didn't mention that the story is told in first person, so the MC is telling us what's happening with him.. so I must also admit I'm not quite sure could I write the ending in which he kills himself.
I've been told to be good in playing with the reader's mind and making him/her love one character in one moment and another in the next, or twisting the story in many ways.. so I believe (and I know I sound quite egoistic, lol) that I can write an ending that will appear to be happy for those who want it to be happy, and somewhat sad for those who can imagine more than only MC's feelings after the end of the story, or understand that the game will go on no matter if he's a winner or a loser.
If you ask me what I like, I think I'd answer pretty much the same way Alice did, I never really liked those happy happy endings where everything is perfect and every single bit of evil is defeated.
As for the selling part, I am always writing to fit in my worldview, and agree that readers can tell when the writer is not doing that. I'm planning to finish my book quite soon, and already I can imagine arguing with editors and friends who read it and say they'd do this or that differently, LOL
As for the sequels, when you mentioned them, I have concepts for three more novels on the same subject, although the MC is not staying the same :) I only hope to write all of my ideas in.. like.. my lifetime :p
I think your ending sounds really great. I agree its much better than "and they all lived happily ever after" endings. What's the name of your novel?
Some of my biggest writing influences practiced regular use of the grim but provocative ending: Kurt Vonnegut; H. G. Wells; George Orwell; and Rod Serling just to name a few. While it is true that most readers will expect happy endings, I say be true to your work above all else (and be true to whatever genre you're writing). The collective taste of the mass readership moves in trends.I have a couple of books that do not end well for their protagonists. One of them has been decently received, with a lot of heavy opinion divided one way or the other. Those who have appreciated that it left them thinking have rated it highly, although those unsatisfied with the unhappy ending (or considered it propaganda) have been pretty scathing.
Remember, you can't satisfy every reader, but you can find your niche and satisfy your targeted readership.
regarding a bad ending. it is only a bad ending in my opinion, if the goal of the protagonist is not fulfilled.if his goal is to save his girlfriend, but he die in that act and saves her successfully before that, than it is a good ending. a really bad ending would be dying through the hand of the antagonist and his girlfriend will be the slave of him forever... i mean that would be so bad that you would question, if everything that happened in the book did matter at all. not that it would be illogical, but maybe too real for a book, which should entertain the reader, not remind him of the bad reality he is surrounded with...
Alice wrote: "I think your ending sounds really great. I agree its much better than "and they all lived happily ever after" endings. What's the name of your novel?"Thank you, I'm glad you think that :)
As for the name, I don't have it yet. Well, actualy, I have a few of them, and I'm still not quite sure what will it be, LOL. I don't want it to reveal too much about the story, but I still don't want it to be too abstract either...
Patrick wrote: "regarding a bad ending. it is only a bad ending in my opinion, if the goal of the protagonist is not fulfilled.if his goal is to save his girlfriend, but he die in that act and saves her successf..."
This!
Hi all! Endings are in the eye of the beholder, or genre. I look at Lord of the Rings, and my friends who wrote romance are upset that Frodo didn't have a HEA in the sense that he found a companion he could love and have a relationship with. Fiction friends talk about the balance between good and evil and how it was "just right." Fantasy friends talk about how awesome it is he saves the world and gets to live with elves for the rest of his life and could not care a whit about romance. It's all in the genre, IMO.
Lillian
Aria wrote: "Alice wrote: "I think your ending sounds really great. I agree its much better than "and they all lived happily ever after" endings. What's the name of your novel?"Thank you, I'm glad you think t..."
Ahh you can tell me later in the proces if you want. If there is anything I can do to help, just tell me :D
And I think there are some really nice oppinions given here. A lot of examples given.
Lillian wrote: "Hi all! Endings are in the eye of the beholder, or genre. I look at Lord of the Rings, and my friends who wrote romance are upset that Frodo didn't have a HEA in the sense that he found a companio..."
Haha, this is so true! I guess for that reason I should give my book to someone neutral, someone who's not the writer himself and doesn't think about how he'd write this or that while reading the book (which I hate, but still am doing sometimes).
When it comes to engings, I somehow find it hard to write a happy happy one - even if the MC saves the world, I have to leave at least a hint that it's not really over. I guess happy endings are just not my thing.. I like to put some sadness in my writings, some real and heavy feelings.. although I don't write in a depressive way, I think.. I'd rather say I like creating those sparks of happines in the fog of everything else :)
As for my own book's end, I'm already looking forward to reactions of the readers.
Aria wrote: "even if the MC saves the world, I have to leave at least a hint that it's not really over."i'm not sure if that would be considered a happy happy ending anymore.
the hero saves the world from the enemy, survives and everything is fine. it is revealed that his enemy was just a pawn of a bigger enemy, which will be shown in part 2.
-> i mean he didn't really saved the world in that case, did he? maybe he prolonged the life a bit, nothing more.
I would still consider it a happy ending. The fight between good and evil is never really "over." It's all about living on to fight another day, pushing the darkness back- that's happy enough for most people.
I think, ultimately, as a reader, what I'm looking for or expecting is a Good Ending to a story, something that satisfies the journey I embarked in with the book. It might be a happy ending or it might be sad or poignant, but it should be a good ending, nonetheless. Period. :)
Aria,Sorry. I just this minute saw your post for the first time (as I didn't even belong to this forum -- at least that I was aware of, until 30 minutes ago).
If you're at all like me in this regard, the last thing you want to hear is a recommendation to read so-and-so and such-and-such. However, I'll risk it.
Carson McCullers was the author (if you don't already know her name, you can learn more about her here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carson_M... THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING (http://www.amazon.com/The-Member-Wedd...) is the book I'd recommend. You can read it in an afternoon.
For whatever it's worth, this is one of the few novels I've read more three times during my life -- and I don't even particularly care for YA fiction.
Why, then? -- you may well ask...
For my money, Carson McCullers may well be the greatest Southern writer we've had to date -- if you exclude Missouri as a Southern state and Mark Twain as a Southern writer.
And next in line -- in fact a close second and third -- would be Flannery O'Connor and Erskine Caldwell.
Faulkner obviously figures somewhere among the top 10; I'm just not sure where.
Final note: THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING is not, properly speaking, YA fiction. It's a coming-of-age story in the vein of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD or A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN. But Carson's work -- namely, her imagination and style -- in this particular genre is, in my opinion, without peer. You can only profit by reading her.
Russell
Carson McCullers is brilliant--and many of her endings are intensely sad (but they leave you thinking is some very important ways). Flannery O. Conner is also very good, and in many of the same ways. Faulkner is not easy to read, but his work is also quite haunting and surprisingly deep once you scratch the mundane surface.You might be interested in reading my short post from another GR message board on what I've dubbed "The 1984 Effect" (on the relationship between the public's desire for that HEA and what I see as the slow death of the dystopia). Here is the link:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7...
Leigh,First off, NO...you are not alone (in your opinion).
I read your monograph on the subject of -- shall we say -- the death of dystopia(n literature), and I agree with most everything you say there.
Where I DISagree, however, is with your perspective -- limited, perhaps, because I suspect you're much younger than I.
I'll be brief... It is not that PEOPLE don't want, can't and won't put up with anything less than a happy ending; it's that the AMERICAN people (by and large) don't want it, etc. But we never have!
If you go back 200 years -- but, more specifically, even just 100 years -- it's always been about "happy endings." For every one reader who reaches for a copy of ANNA KARENINA, 10,000 will reach for HARRY POTTER & THE YOU-NAME-IT. This isn't an indictment of the reading public; this is just a fact -- and every publisher knows it.
It's even more blatantly obvious in the movies. For every person who views "Sid & Nancy," "Leaving Las Vegas," or "Requiem for a Dream," one million will pay to watch "The Sound of Music."
It's all about 'feel good.' But this isn't new. Have you read up on the Eisenhower era? A look at the movie (or a read of Michael Cunningham's perfect book of the same title) "The Hours" will give you some idea.
The only exceptions we make are: (1) horror; and (2) war movies. (I'm not enough of a student of either cinema or psychology, by the way, to know why. Perhaps you are.)
Russell
P. S. One last little tidbit -- relatively ignored even in academic circles.... The Russian writer Zamyatin's book WE preceded Orwell's 1984 by several years. I, for one, have always had a tremendous respect for Eric A. Blair, alias George Orwell. And so, if Orwell insists (as he did at the time) he knew nothing about Zamyatin's WE when he (Orwell) sat down to write 1984, I tend to believe him.
Read it if you will and decide for yourself. I just checked: even Amazon carries it (http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Library-...). I'd thought I might just own the only extant copy -- one I bought 30 years ago in a little bookstore in Vienna, Austria. But obviously not.
Russel- you may be onto something here. It may have to do with the American worldview as compared to European one. Ayn Rand used a term "a sense of life" when talking about art, which is a little broader and more instinctive than "worldview." It has to do with how one regards the universe (benign vs. hostile) and humanity (destined for greatness vs. failure and doom). Most artists will lean towards one or the other and their work will reflect it. Americans in general have a view of benign universe and Europeans usually do not. Obviously a huge generalization right there, but it does explain things.(Which is why I can't get over A Clockwork Orange story I posted above).
I've been told many times that stories/novels with happy endings are better sold, more wanted, more apprechiated etc. I personaly don't really care if the end of a story I'm reading is happy or not, if it's a good written one and if it comes in some way logically after what was happening in the story itself.
This topic is inspired by a friend of mine, who doesn't really share my oppinion on this and has told me more than once that I should write more happy endings.
Part of my problem is that I'm not quite sure what does 'happy end' mean, especially if the story is about a lot of people and has a lot of characters and things going on.
I can get it, for example, if two people are in love that they, in a happy end, should be together. But what if them being together means, again for example, that the evil in the story will win? Is it still a happy ending, if it makes happy some of the characters, but destroys the world by the way?
In my novel, the one I'm writing, the main character is sort of a magician. He can do certain things and he's involved in a 'game' between two players - if in chess, he'd be one of the kings (when he's gone, the game is over, but he's really no more than a figure, if you get me). It is not a physical fight, it's more of a mind game, and he's (I can't explain it better without writing a very long post) creating the dreams of his opponent (who is not known in the story), and the other way around. The one who loses is the one who stays in one of those worlds of dreams (by his or her own choice, or because he/she can't tell what's real and what's not anymore). But if my character uses his abillities too much, he develops somewhat a second personality, his Other, who is, in the most simple words, not a good guy.
Although I know what I'll write, and although I even know I didn't have to choose between this possibilities, what whould here be considered as a happy ending - him winning the game and staying with the woman he loves (and children), but awakening his Other (which would mean he's mostly dangerous for them and for everyone), or losing the game and staying trapped in one of those not-so-real worlds, in a way saving his family but also never able to be with them again?
One could say those are both unhappy endings - but that would mean that only happy ending is a non-realistic one, and wouldn't that destroy the story?
I hope this post was not too long, and I hope I'll get someone's thoughts on this. I'm pretty sure I'll stick to my oppinion and write the ending I think that fits, but I'd still like to know what other writers think about it. :)