For anyone who reads chick lit, I was wondering how a reader would feel if the MC (usually female) and the love interest didn't wind up in a relationship at the end? Every chick lit novel I've read, they get together. Sometimes I feel it's done well but a lot of the time I find the MC and love interest are together, separate, and then by a bizarre set of circumstances that don't feel believable, they get together to purely satisfy the reader. I'm writing a chick lit novel but I don't want my MC and the love interest to get together. This is mostly because the love interest is also the antagonist, my MC's boss, married and is emotionally abusive towards my MC. They do get together, but only briefly, and I don't really want them together at the end because it wouldn't be healthy. But then I feel like I might be cheating the reader out of a romanic happy ending. Wondering how other chick lit readers would feel?
If a book is badly written, the ending may feel forced, but the problem isn't in the happy ending, it's in poor writing skills. A writer can make a reader believe absolutely anything, readers want to be entertained and most of them don't read fiction to see real life, they want to experience a fantasy world in which anything is possible (within their chosen genre, mostly). In the movie '27 Dresses' the protagonist doesn't end up with her main love interest (also her boss) but in the end falls for another guy. As chic lit goes, it's a nice and interesting story. I think chic lit is usually a version of a romance story, and the protagonist has to have her 'happily ever after'. I think readers insist on that more than anything else. It's why they read it in the first place.
I understand that the protagonist needs her 'happily ever after', but does that 'happily ever after' necessarily need to be with a romantic interest? My MC is in no shape at the end of the novel to want to hook up with anyone after the abuse, but finds happiness in herself and her self-confidence and independence (none of which she has in the beginning). Can that be enough without a romantic interest at the end?
Well, a story can certainly have such an ending, but then it won't be chic lit anymore. It might be classified as 'literary' instead. I think readers sometimes need the happy ending more than the protagonist. ps. Just saw you are from Melbourne. I used to live in St Kilda, I miss that place so much
Totally get that about the readers But I feel that's something I can't really make myself write, to give her a happy romantic ending, I feel it would make a lot of the plot for nothing no matter how well I write it (that and the fact its a memoir, as the MC and the antagonist are based on myself and my ex-boss). Am totally happy not have it called chick-lit though if it means not sacrificing my ending. Have been calling it chick-lit on the fact that I honestly have no idea what else it is...
I think it can easily be classified as 'literary'. Genre doesn't matter anyway, most books are a mixture, and it's only when marketing to a specific type of reader, that sticking to genre constraints is important. I would't worry about it at all. Put your effort into writing the best book you can, and let the publisher decide how to label it later on. Staying true to the story is by far most important, I think.
If the love interest is an abusive jerk, a happy ending would be the MC kicking him to the curb. If you want to do a happy ending with the MC falling in love and living happily ever after, I would create a second love interest.
I think the ending should be wherever the story leads you. I read a lot of chick lit and you're right in that mostly those stories end with the love interests being together. I have read at least one where they didn't and it wasn't a bad ending.
Thanks @Renee J and @L.T. MC 'kind of' kicks him to the curb - she thinks he's kicked her to the curb when in reality he hasn't, but despite missing him she realises she's better off without him and tells him as such. But there's no way I want to give her a second love interest as I don't think it fits the MC. It's nice to know they don't always end up together in chick lit
