When you create an ending or experience an ending in another story, do you prefer when it ends sadly? Whether that be with the main character dying or something else. Because, with all my stories, not a single one has a happy ending, and I'm wondering if that will anger the reader or make them stop wanting to view my content. Is it bad to make every ending a sad one?
Who's your audience? What do other books in your genre do? There are definitely genres that should avoid unhappy endings, romance for instance. Others would do perfectly fine with an unhappy one.
Honestly, I find the absolute worst endings are those written by people who think sad endings are the best endings.
What are the kinds of endings? Happy endings where the main character learns something and gets what they want in the material world. Frustrating / sad / bittersweet endings where they learn something but don't get what they want in the material world. Bullshit / fun endings where they learn nothing but get what they want. Tragedy where they learn their lesson too late and do not get what they want. Waste of time stories where they don't learn anything and don't get what they want. Obviously, I don't like the kind I'm calling "waste of time," but I think there is a big difference between tragedy and frustrating/sad. Tragedy is like a moral lesson where you want someone cause their own demise. Bitter sweet is where they resolve the crisis by realizing they wanted the wrong thing all along or whatever, like a love story where the protagonist learns so and so is no good. A bank robber realizes money isn't everything and gives the money back. A bank robber realizes too late money isn't everything and dies or gets arrested. A bank robber is a huge asshole and dies. Imagine "Reservoir Dogs" but Mr. Pink also dies and no one gets the money. They are different stories.
Hello, friend. I 'm a huge fan of sad, tragic endings; it's my guilty pleasure. Yes, it can come to a depressive feeling, but those stories teach a lesson or morals are vry powwerful. Not every ending as to be sad, to change a bit, I like a happy ending. Just research according to your genre and see what ending your audience is looking for. I hope this helps.
If every single one of your endings are sad, your readers will come to expect it. I'd say for the story to be worth the sadness I know it'd induce, it needs to be really, really good and/or have a deeper message/lesson. Sad endings have their place, but I wouldn't keep reading your stuff if I knew all of them are gonna make me cry. I was so mad at what the author did towards the end of the Kite Runner that I am never reading another one of his books again. I know they're good. But I don't want the emotional roller coaster. And having had a taste of his first book, I know what to expect in his subsequent books, and I know I don't wanna go through that again. I felt like that final straw was just the author toying with his readers, that it was completely unnecessary to the plot, that the author did it for the tears. It was too much. So yes, I'd say you'd lose readers over your sad endings. The question for you, really, is whether those are the right endings for your books? No need to give something a happy ending just to please readers, but the same applies to sad endings really. Write an ending that is appropriate to your story, rather than making it happy or sad for the sake of it.
I prefer to have happy endings, but along the way I expect the main characters to experience sadness and loss.
I think a story has to earn its ending no matter how it ends. That's very important. And there is a lot of options between a sad and a happy endings. Play around with those. I, personally, think death endings are a waste most of the time. But, again, if the story earns the ending just about anything can work.
