How do your stories end?

How many people write happy endings? Or are your characters physically or mentally crushed by the end of your story?

I do not write happy endings and if I do ever, it's twisted with dark humor and the sense that whatever happens next (after the story ends) is probably not a good thing. I write mostly literary fiction, and this tends to be true for pretty much everything I write. My novel is a dystopian story.

Let's talk about endings. How do you like to have your stories end? Are you pretty consistent about how you end your stories? Also mention your genre or something about what kind of story you write. I think it could be fun to see how we view story endings.

My guess is that most of our characters probably face horrible outcomes. Is this true? Why? What happened to happily ever after? That silly little, completely fiction saying Lol.

 

When a reporter asked Alan Bennett if he were gay or straight Bennett said something along the lines of, "That's asking a man parched and walking through a desert if he prefers Evian or Volvic".

I wish my stories ended.

 

My most recent phase of stories are coming-of-age and involve a very difficult and dark life with the character learning how to cope or struggling through great difficulties and learning how to become strong in the face of all life's problems. Not what I would call happy endings, but they manage to reach some sort of dark equilibrium. In fact I describe one of them as something like boot camp that results in the character being strong and capable at the end, rather than lost and foundering as she was at the beginning. They involve losing naive assumptions and dangerous innocence and trading them in for a wary assertiveness and an understanding that you can't just go around trusting everybody and that sometimes even your friends and family members don't have your best interests at heart.

 

I only write happy endings as it is a requirement of my genre (Romance). I also write specifically in that genre because I am only interested in writing happy endings, so maybe it's a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg situation for me.

I don't end my books with a wedding and/or a baby, but I think I'm able to make it clear that by the end of the story the two MCs are committed to each other and plan to be together for at least the foreseeable future.

 

For endings, I look for an event that wraps up the last bits of the plot and provides a vehicle to show temporary closure for the characters. But at the same time, I kick up dust for the sequel, when they will be thrust back into their next bout of conflict.

I guess you could say they are fleeting moments of happiness.

 

I had a very grim way of ending my stories --
My first novel ended with an explosion leaving the reader unsure if the protagonist and villain died together. And another novel ended similarly with the 'villain' chasing after the mc but stepping in the path of the gunfire - it rips through him and kills the mc as well. Even another novel had the mc losing his mind and hanging his student in a replay of his wife's suicide. This leveling of characters was a strange note that cropped up in my fiction and I struggled to erase it even though it appears in my short stories too. In Thunderbolt the mc who enters the prison to exact revenge cuts his cellmates vocal cords - they are last seen eating together like buddies - doomed to exist in two prisons - one of their making.
I'm fighting that grimness now - in my WIP, first draft it had a hopeful ending - which I'm capable of and which I prefer. Though I would like to know my psychology of why I kept killing off the two opposing characters.

 

The last couple of stories I wrote had unhappy endings. In fact, I generally run my stories by my sister, brother and mother, and they did not like them, because the endings were not happy!

But I know my endings were what had to happen. Life is not a bowl of cherries. As much as we wish it was.

I like a happy ending as much as the next person, but we have to be true to our characters and the universe in general.

 

Freedom from limitations.

 

I'd say my characters are usually spent, for better or worse.

 

The idea I had for the end of my novel was meant to give a twist on the stereotypical hero saves the day. Basically you think the MC will be the main hero but turns out his love interest is the one that ends up being the hero.

 

I like the idea of sorted twisted hope you're working with. And in the end leaving that twisted hope in there. I can see that working well in a coming of age story. Good luck with it,

 

@tjwaters -- This is aimed at you, but I'm interested in hearing anyone's thoughts on this. Ibet ending are tricky in a sequel. You have to leave the reader wanting more, while those of us writing stand alone stories have to bring a reader to a place where they are satisfied with the closure of our story.

 

Depends on the story. Some are Reasonably Happy. Some are So Not Happy. Some are a combination of the two. I've never understood why devastatingly unhappy endings are considered classier/more literary/more realistic than reasonably happy endings.

 

I don't know about classier, but I do believe literary fiction stories often have unhappy endings or sort of twisted stories that don't turn out so well for the characters.

 

Those are some endings, for sure! What made you decide to go for a happier ending in your latest story? Do you think it was a matter of when you chose to end your story that made a difference with this? Also, it's great that you can do both happy and unhappy endings. Why do you prefer a happy ending? Is there one that you think is easier for you to pull off as a writer?

 

Another one in the "unhappy camp!" Make those characters suffer a little even when we're done with them, right?

 

I don't exactly understand what you're saying.

 

Same.

 

Sounds interesting. Do you see that has a happy ending or not so much? It could probably go either way, depending on how you write it.

 

I totally know what you mean. I, too, have used this approach in ending stories which has been successful for me, meaning I sold stories that end like this. A good last line can really bring it home sometimes

 

True, happy endings do not abound in literary fiction. Why they are frowned upon, I am not sure, but I have occasionally seen agents' sites that declare some version of "happy endings need not apply- they make me sick." Mind you, I'm not advocating My Little Pony Unicorns singing The End as wedding bells ring at the end of every story, but unremitting gloom is as tiresome as unremitting sweetness and light.

 

I tend to make my characters suffer and struggle more than I am. Right now they're really hurting and things won't end well. But, seriously, literary fiction isn't all gloom and doom, but I would say characters don't always reach their goal or end up in a better place than they started, for the most part. I guess it's the flip side to a genre like romance where happy endings are expected.

 

No, not all gloom and doom, or I wouldn't read so much of it. I write upmarket fiction for the most part which is kinda the best of two worlds.