Happy or not happy endings ... thoughts?

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Or you can just kill them. Sometimes, a character's story I think just needs to end that way. Commander Shepard from Mass Effect as an example.

Indeed. A lot of people were pissed over ME3's ending but I felt it was an appropriate way to close the book, so to speak. I do have to say that I felt a little bad about Tali's ending, though. That didn't need to happen. I liked Tali.


Of course, killing an MC off only works if you know for absolute certain their chapters are locked away. I don't think readers appreciate cheating a character back to life, and it's more work than it's worth, I feel, to bring a character back legit. Especially if there were witnesses to their death.

 

[Galacticdefender]

I like endings that are "epic". I'm not exactly sure how epic is defined in this case, but I definitely know something when something is epic when I read it . I like the ultimate climax of a book to be at the very end generally, and I want it to have a huge impact on whatever world the book is set in. I don't particularly like overly upbeat, happy endings.

EDIT: Hey, uh, you know Tali can live, right? (I haven't seen the extended ending yet, as I'm playing back through the series to give it a second chance, so I hope you didn't just spoil something... lol) But yes, I liked the general idea of the Mass Effect 3 ending, though it was executed TERRIBLY, and left with no closure.

 

[Toby Frost]

Is an epic ending a very satisfying one, or just one where lots of stuff explodes? One of my (many) issues with the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland film was its need to have a big battle scene, when that sort of simple good-vs-evil doesn't really happen in the books and is one of the things that make them really different.

I agree about the epicness of the ending, if it means that very dramatic stuff happens and everyone's story ends with a bang. But the bang has to feel deserved, or at least feasible. Take The Wild Bunch, which ends with a vast shootout. It's about seedy bandits who eventually turn on the tyrannical general who employs them, and hence feels in keeping with the rest of the film. It certainly ends the story, especially since the survivors pretty much announce that they are riding off into a new sort of life.

What I don't like is the out-of-nowhere ending. I can't remember how to do spoilers, but the one Karn mentions is bad, because it's crowbarred in to allow a happy resolution. I can also think of a character in a more recent novel, who seemed to be given radiation sickness purely to show that it's a tough world, man.

 

[chongjasmine]

I tend to like happy endings more than not happy endings.
I like to read a story where in the end, the good wins over the evil.
I like to escape to such a world, that is sunny and happy at the end, different from the sad reality I have to face each day in a not so sunny real world.

 

[skynes]

I want a result that's real, I do like happy endings, but the one where the main character succeeds by giving their own life, those endings stick with me longer. If a happy ending, I like the victory to have come at a cost.

In something of my own that I'm writing, I have two different endings thought up, one where the good guys win, one where the bad guy wins.

 

[Colbey Frost]

I want a result that's real, I do like happy endings, but the one where the main character succeeds by giving their own life, those endings stick with me longer. If a happy ending, I like the victory to have come at a cost.

In something of my own that I'm writing, I have two different endings thought up, one where the good guys win, one where the bad guy wins.

Or a third faction could win out of the blue having been at their heels. And in the second book the good and the evil could unite to overthrow this new threat. Because nothing is as simple good vs evil anymore.

 

[skynes]

Or a third faction could win out of the blue having been at their heels. And in the second book the good and the evil could unite to overthrow this new threat. Because nothing is as simple good vs evil anymore.

Well.. what I was planning is... first novel can be read 'as is' with good defeating evil, but just in case I need to write a sequel there's enough 'hints' dropped that an even worse threat is on the horizon.

But then even my good/evil are less good/evil and more differing ideas on 'good' that ends up in fighting, because as you say, nothing is as simple good vs evil.

 

[anthorn]

I agree with Hex. I don't read a story to be made miserable. I disagree with Mouse about the ending of Amber Spyglass. It went out of its way to make the ending sad for no good reason I could see.

HDM btw, was described by its author as "Paradise Lost seeing Heaven as a Republic" so it could be seen as anti-religious or not, depending on whether you think a good sovereign can be the best ruler or just hate kings on general principals.

The worst kind of ending is neither happy or sad but simply not an ending at all. This is what they did with LOST. Most every viewer had guessed they were in Purgatory by the second episode but the writers maintained it WASN'T purgatory for six years, so we watched to see what it was and then... I realise they were writing a work of fiction, yes, but I still don't think the authors have a right to lie ABOUT the story. Basically the ratings were declining so they just canceled it in advance, loose ends be damned.

And strangely, the most satisfying ending I ever saw was almost exactly the same circumstance. The Prisoner ended because they just didnt have the ratings to continue. Its ending didn't make any sense either BUT the show had never really made sense anyway and they answered all the questions. They answered them with MORE questions, that is true, but they answered them nonetheless

Sorry for digging up an old thread but I need to clarify something Joan. They were right in maintaining it wasn't purgotory for Six Years, because it wasn't. The events on the island happened in their lives. The flash sideways in series 6 WERE purgotory, but everything esle like the flashbacks and flashforwards and the island were real.

I do agree with you that they got to Series 3 got sick of it and decided to do 17 episode seasons to get it done with.

I mean, why the hell say it was always about the characters from the beginning when in they were asking in the very beginning. "Guys, where are we?"
Also.

WTF WAS THAT BOX BEN KEPT REFERING TO?

 

[Lucky_Lola]

Good thread!

On previously mentioned texts:

Bridge to Terebithia (the movie, not the book) - I saw this for the first time last year. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried like a baby, ugly crying too, not that little stuff you can put down to allergies

The Farseer Trilogy - These books were the first time I truly grieved for the loss of a fictional character, and it shook me to my core. Robin Hobb made me think about why I love reading, and what fantasy meant to me. The final trilogy made it worse (but I adore it). This is what I think of as bittersweet.

Lost - I stopped watching when the polar bear appeared. Too much. Apologies to those who enjoyed it, but I couldn't stretch my suspension of disbelief that far.

In my own work, I most definitely favor the bittersweet. As a long-time student of Greek, Roman and Tudor-Stuart tragedy, I find resonance with characters who are beset by obstacles, whose fatal flaws trip them up. Just the other day I was discussing the perils of familial duty and revenge in the Oresteia.

I agree with those above who lean toward happy-with-a-cost. At this stage, out of five major characters in my WiP, two die, and a third... well. He lives on in a kind of personal hell. But two get to be happy.... ish

Related question about character deaths... what do people think of a pointless major character death (chokes on a sandwich, victim of friendly fire, falls off horse during march, et cetera) if the point of it is highlighting the pointlessness of his death? (If that even makes sense!)

 

[Gumboot]

Related question about character deaths... what do people think of a pointless major character death (chokes on a sandwich, victim of friendly fire, falls off horse during march, et cetera) if the point of it is highlighting the pointlessness of his death? (If that even makes sense!)

Some of the best deaths in fiction I can think of are the ones that seemed totally senseless. George RR Martin and Jack Whyte are two authors who are nastily good at doing that.

ETA. It's also decidedly realistic, just look at Alexander the Great, who single-handedly forged the largest empire the world have ever seen, and then promptly got some sort of infection (possibly while swimming in a river) and died age 32.

 

[Warren_Paul]

There is nothing worse than a story being left unresolved, but it doesn't have to be a happy ever after ending to achieve that.

I suspect the bittersweet style ending is becoming more popular in that people are getting tired of the happy ever after scenario where everything turns out just perfectly - especially in romance. I suspect there is more of a drive going towards realistic stories than anything else, and in real life, rarely is there such a thing as happy endings. Saying that, I don't have any interest in reading bad endings either as typically they are left unresolved.

I think this is why I tend not to read horror. Rarely will I finish the last page of a horror novel and feel satisfied with the ending. Mainly because I don't consider it one. I recently made the mistake of reading one such horror novel because the plot interested me. It ended with everyone dying and the bad guy pretty much continuing on like normal, as if everything the protagonists had tried to do in the story meant nothing. Sure, the book had a fantastic plot development and character depth, but that ending... really? My experience with horror is that this kind of outcome - bad endings - is the norm.

The middle ground is where it's at, imo, and that's what I'm working towards with my current WIP. It will be bittersweet. There will be both sad, and happy thoughts you can take away from it. There will be major costs to both the world and the characters.

On the point of sudden and shock-tactic deaths. How many deaths in real life are planned and intended to happen? People die from accidents all the time. That a character could go to an untimely death by falling off their horse, or hit by a stray arrow - something completely ungrand or unfitting for a great hero? Yes, I could believe that happening. The way GRRM kills off his characters is realistic, imo. Same with Steven Erikson too. MAJOR SPOILERS for those who haven't read Steven Erikson's Memories of Ice: Look at how he killed off Whiskeyjack in Memories of Ice, and then look at how effective the death was. He was a major hero, a central figure in the war. He died in a two second long fight because of his damaged leg. It was unexpected, it was shocking, it was bloody brilliant writing and hugely successful.

I'm all for sudden and unexpected death scenes.

 

[Lucky_Lola]

just look at Alexander the Great, who single-handedly forged the largest empire the world have ever seen, and then promptly got some sort of infection (possibly while swimming in a river) and died age 32.

This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about. And WP, you hit the nail on the head, too. No living person's death is planned. Reading a character's slide toward an inevitable death can be brilliant, if written well, but the ones that come out of nowhere really stick with you. Staying with GRRM, Ned Stark was fantastic. No one really believed he would do it until his head hit the floor.

That said, I think maybe GRRM is a little too axe-happy :O

 

[HareBrain]

Fiction differs from life in several ways, and for good reason. (The classic example is dialogue -- imagine how terribly it would read if it were entirely realistic.) One of the reasons people enjoy stories is that they have a structure real-life lacks. I think realistically "meaningless" deaths of major characters have to be handled with extreme care. Both the Erikson and Martin examples quoted above happened because of earlier plot events: in Martin's case it was the culmination of a major strand, and was only truly unpredictable because no one thought that's what authors did. But had those deaths been from random typhus or something, it would probably have been much less satisfactory, even if realistic.

 

[Gumboot]

I would actually cite Ned Stark's death as a good example of a well-crafted death rather than a random one. If you re-read the book a second time it's pretty obvious he's going to die. You just convince yourself he won't because, as HareBrain says, authors don't do that.

 

[Toby Frost]

I think those are both good points. At the end of the day every death in a novel is planned. The aim has to be to write something that is satisfactory as a book, not as a depiction of real life. Even the meaningless deaths have meaning in the book, if they serve to surprise the reader, make him think or achieve a similar effect. I suppose the meaningless death joins the list of "special effects" that the writer can use to keep the story exciting.

 

[Gumboot]

I think those are both good points. At the end of the day every death in a novel is planned. The aim has to be to write something that is satisfactory as a book, not as a depiction of real life. Even the meaningless deaths have meaning in the book, if they serve to surprise the reader, make him think or achieve a similar effect.

It's also worth remembering that even if you do stick random meaningless things into your story, your readers will assume they have meaning, and will come up with their own explanation.

It's funny that someone mentioned Lost and the polar bears, because that's a perfect example that I used in a blog I wrote on this topic. The makers of Lost have outright stated that the polar bears had no symbolism or significance whatsoever, but many fans continue to reject this, and postulate about what they might mean.

When writing a book or any story, you're not faithfully recounting reality. Every single thing you write, you're choosing to include, and every single thing you leave out, you're choosing to exclude.

As readers increasingly expect tight, fast-paced stories trimmed of all fluff, readers increasingly presume anything you've included is there for a good reason.

That's not to say you should explain or justify everything you include, but it's worth being aware that readers will try explain things themselves, and if they get frustrated at their inability to come up with an explanation for something (such as the polar bears in Lost) you run the real risk of losing your audience.

An example that springs to mind is Jon Snow's parentage in A Song of Ice and Fire. This is probably one of the most discussed "mysteries" of the series, and a big part of why many people keep reading it. As it stands, unexplained, it's a marvelous tool for dragging readers into the story.

However, imagine for a moment that Martin concludes the series, and Jon Snow's parentage is never revealed, and is not really particularly important to the final climax at all. It is revealed it's a total non-event - a completely random, unimportant, unanswered question.

I suspect the outrage, the sense of betrayal many readers would feel, would be staggering.

 

[Galacticdefender]

An ending has to make me feel something, or give me something to think about for me to consider it to be a good ending. For books, I would give 2001: A Space Odyssey as an example. A video game that has a great ending is Halo 3. It was epic, and it left just enough stuff open for there to be a sequel, while still having quite a bit of closure.

 

[Mouse]

There is nothing worse than a story being left unresolved, but it doesn't have to be a happy ever after ending to achieve that.

Mmm. Yes, I found that out recently. I, personally, adore unresolved endings, but apparently not many others do.

All four of my betas told me my ending needed more explaining. I even got one: WHAT?!?!?! and one: AHHHHHHH! which, although it made me grin, is probably not a good thing! So anyway, I added more to the end and, of course, they were all right and it's much better now.

 

[allmywires]

I think the problem with endings is that we as authors want to spell out what happens to our characters in their futures....also known as, in my mind, the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows syndrome. That book was bloody FINE without the stupid epilogue, it would have been a good ending, but nooooo, she had to imprint what she thought the characters would do in their futures so it was forever canon. A good ending, like has been said before, has a mixture of sad and happy, and most importantly, doesn't tell you every damn detail about what your characters do afterwards. After the story you might have your own headcanon, but the beauty is letting other people interpret your work and not forcing it on your readers It's a tough lesson I'm trying to teach myself now.

And Mouse, you are probably not alone in loving unresolved endings, and when TBM no doubt gets picked up you may be able to have your unresolved ending after all You can't please everybody...