Age is not the only factor - a detail of the powers that the characters have is that two people with these powers cannot have a child together, for that child would inherit both sets of powers and be extremely powerful, maybe too powerful. This makes relationships hard. However, from my own experience even just a three year age difference can be quite frowned upon. I even know a friend who made a friend who was three years younger than him and teachers started to get on his back about it. Technically, if one person is, say, 18 and the other is 15 it is classed as paedophilia and this makes it hard as well.
Oh, trust me. An age gap can make a HUGE difference. It's not so much the gap itself, but when it occurs. Take a 7-year age gap. It's perfectly okay for a 40-year-old to marry a 47-year-old. Some would say it's an ideal match, actually. However, a 15-year-old seeing (or marrying) a 22-year-old will be seen much differently. As @Slade Lucas says, in most places in the developed world, this is actually illegal. However, it is perfectly possible for the 15-year-old and the 22-year-old to fall deeply in love. It's just that they won't be allowed to be together at that time. If they defy convention and run away together, the older party can even be arrested and jailed. In nearly all cases they will be forced to separate against their will. They may even feel that separation is the right thing to do, because they also think the age gap is inappropriate. The older one may feel he or she is cheating the younger one of his or her 'youth.' The younger one may feel he or she isn't worthy, or experienced enough to fulfill the older one's needs. Of course these doubts are likely to be reinforced by any bystanders who become aware of the situation. If these two lovers give in to pressure, give up, get on with their lives and lose touch completely—then happen to meet again, many years later, there is no reason they won't feel the same love for each other as they did before. Of course by then, there may be other barriers. It won't be age coming between them any longer, but it may well be marriage to other people, children, job location and so forth. Age is a very realistic barrier, especially for young people. And sadly, it can end up being a lifelong barrier.
Mine is sort of both. Imagine Romeo and Juliet; a forbidden love. Only instead of dying, they part, both brokenhearted. It is a tragedy. Then a LOT of time passes, and one day they are reunited. It could still be tragic, or the love will come out of dormancy...which will it be?
Originally, I had planned on my two MC's getting together in the end. However, in a flash of brilliance (patting myself on the back) I figured out that if they didn't get together, my female lead could go on...into a sequel, or even a series. And since I like her and wouldn't mind writing more about her, I have chosen the bittersweet ending. But, I also would point out that these two probably shouldn't be together anyway; they are simply too different. Frequently, the characters will guide you to the right ending.
I've been asking myself the same question lately with regards to how I'm going to round off a series. I'd originally planned for the two lovers to have their happily ever after. However the more I wrote, the more it felt out of my hands (to a point, of course!) Asper's love-interest, Jezebel, has a messy past involving the death of a previous lover which has scarred her plenty. At a point Jezebel is assumed dead which, eventually (a dozen decades later), leads Asper to pursue a second love-interest. I've gotten to the point at which I really don't know how things are going to end. Will my MC devote himself to the new girl or drift back to Jezebel when he discovers she is alive? Will the old feelings between them even be able to be rekindled or are they lost to time? Perhaps he will end up with neither. I'm extremely new to writing so spend a TON of time just reading the threads here rather than actually posting! Just wanted to say that I agree with the ideas thus far for sure. I'm going to do my best to not force anything - let my characters 'choose' while I focus on pulling off the bigger picture. Letting the pieces fall where they may I think I actually find more exciting than knowing the ending in every detail - maybe that's the newbie writer in me talking
In that situation I would probably have the MC getting with the original love interest because I've always liked to believe that you always go back to your first true love. Which, I suppose, is why my MC's love interest goes back to her original love. But then again, that is the whole point in my question - I was unsure whether that was a good idea.
So, I know this thread is pretty old now, but something I just said to my girlfriend brought me back to it. We were discussing a heartbreaking plot-twist that she just read in a book I recommended to her (The Stand by Stephen King), and she asked me: "Do you just have a tendency to read heartbreaking stories?" I responded with, "They're the only good ones" While I know this isn't always true, I thought it applied well here.
I've found that, too. Just like the best love songs are about heartbreak. But, I love happy endings. So, I'm trying to have both in the story I'm writing.
Endings should remind me of the fruitlessness of my attempts. I like escapism; but really, the interaction between myself and the escapism -- on introspection, this reminds of the fruitlessness. SO BOOM.
Reminds me of the time when I was 11 and visiting HK. We visited a friend there, and the girl was drawing her own manga. Since I was also drawing my own manga and love story-telling, obviously I asked to see it. She showed me two of her works and both had sad endings. I asked her why, and she said, "It's more interesting." I only saw her work once, for probably the space of 10 minutes back in 1998. I still remember some of the pictures, and I still remember the final scene of this one about an angel. She wrote about a fallen angel who loses her memory and obviously falls in love with a man. When she remembers who she is, she must return to heaven, only now she doesn't want to. She could stay on one condition - that is, she must slice off the wings on her back to turn human. I still remember this shot of her walking down the aisle towards a chair, and on the back of the chair is a guillotine rather than a normal back, through which you put your wings. The blade comes down, the wings thud on the ground, and she slumps and dies, still thinking about her love. I dunno if it was simply really well done, or if it was cus I was only 11 years old - but that thing stayed with me. There's still something about it now, as I think about it, that's really tragic and chilling. Sad endings tend to stay with you more, I think.
Man, that sounds amazing. It'd be much less interesting if she has simply been able to stay with her love. Even if she had just made the sacrifice, that would be interesting, but DAMN that's dark. I love it.
What's wrong with a good ending? If the characters overcome hardships in order to be together, it can feel more rewarding than a sad ending done just because you like sad endings.
Nothing. I said months ago on this thread that I think a good ending is fine, but I believe that the characters have to earn it. As weird as that may sound.
It's not weird at all. Through hardships comes development. A good ending is all the sweeter if the characters earn it, as you say. I dunno, I personally prefer happy endings but I think in my case it's sort of a fulfillment thing. I don't want fictional characters to share my terrible luck when it comes to relationships.
There seems to be the presumption on this thread that the lovers do or don't get together AT THE END of a story. Well, if the story has a will-they-won't-they plotline, either of these two possibilities do make sense. However, there is a third. What if the lovers get together fairly early on in the story, and they solve the story's problems together? That's actually more true to life than the happy ever after ending, and more satisfying than the endless search for 'the one' which probably continues, by implication, after an unhappy ending that doesn't kill the protagonist. Love stories in real life don't end with a wedding. That's just the start. The couple grows together, faces problems and even disasters together, and the two people become stronger as a unit ...or weaker, if there is an inherent problem. But their relationship goes on and develops beyond the 'first contact.' Choosing for them to get together early in the story might be a way to reconcile a writer's need for realism with the desire to make his characters live 'happy' ever after. Automatically tacking on an 'unhappy' ending to every story will get very boring. Just as bad as always having a 'happy ever after' ending, really. Doomy Downers vs Happy-Clappies appeal to different kinds of readers, that's all. But most of us don't want 'stock' endings of either stripe. We want to close a book and feel satisfied that things happened as they should.
In one of my stories the character meets his love interest and about halfway through they get together. However, at the end, said love interest is killed. In this case would it be an entirely sad ending? After all, as you said, it would be much more reflective of life for the characters to get together before the end. And instead of it being like a missed opportunity, could it be more of a "Looking back on the good times," kind of ending? Could it even be reflective of love that was never meant to work out? Gosh, I'm getting deep.
Well that would entirely depend on your characters and the circumstances. But if the readers feel, at the end, that your ending was 'right,' or kind of inevitable, it won't matter which way you go, it will work. Just be careful that you're not shoehorning in a negative romance ending, just for the sake of being a little bit emo. Make sure it's an organic development from your plot. Personally, I find that my stories always end in a bittersweet way. The main character and some of the other characters survive, and have a good future ahead of them. But there are issues from their past that will never be totally resolved, and will inform what they do for the rest of their lives. I think it's important that characters should change during a story. But the endings don't have to be downers or uppers ...just 'what happens next, I wonder?' It's entertaining to see how many current spinoffs there are of a romance novel like Pride and Prejudice. Inevitably, they deal with what happens 'next' for the happy couples we last see getting married in the novel and the filmed versions. So there is life after a happy ending. I think it's good to go there.
"Will we always be this happy?" "Only fairytales have happy endings." "Then lets make sure this never ends ..."
I tend to prefer happy endings too. Sad endings are fine but I think it depends on the story, and also, it depends on the tone you want to set for the novel. There's enough crap in life - I want my fiction to be a little more cheerful! In fact, one of my beta readers just got back to me about my collab and said she felt the ending was a little too perfect and encouraged us to kill off one of our characters. But me and my co-author discussed it today and we both agreed we don't want to kill someone for the sake of killing someone, for the sake of making it sadder. She didn't feel it would add to the realism because it's fiction - dystopian fiction for that matter - it's not like it's real or that we've made effort to make it reflective of real life. She felt killing a side character just to "add" emotional resonance would be a cop-out - that if there should be death, then it should be someone important, such as one of the main characters. But I said that we shouldn't kill an MC unless there's a super good reason and really moved the story forward, which it really wouldn't. I'm not entirely sure why my beta wanted someone dead. My beta felt like my characters hadn't really lost anything throughout the book. I suppose they didn't. But they pretty much live through hell before the novel starts, and then spends the entire novel nearly getting killed. How much more grief do they need!? When I was writing it, I definitely felt that they deserved a happy ending. So, a happy ending it is. We're not changing it
