Okay, I'm somewhat half way through my first draft. It's longer than I intended so who knows. Lol. But I got to thinking, because I'm always thinking about endings, what makes me lean towards tragedy -- what am I doing thinking of killing off a character I'm spending months with? How does this benefit the reader in any way shape or form. Am I one of those women who likes a two hankie film -- no. So what am I doing? I don't even care that much for tragic stories. What goes through your minds when you are contemplating a tragedy in your story? How does it benefit the story, or do you feel that it might be a bit indulgent? Indulgent in the sense that you've built a character made a reader care for them and then wham -- you want the reader to mourn them as well. p.s. I have been writing so much I haven't been as frequent on the internet so if I don't respond it just means I'm off writing. But I really want to hear your thoughts. Part of me feels I'm in danger of being indulgent ... that I'm building something up to tear it down simply to create the kind of character you can weep over and or worse ... I'm afraid I've only come up with it because the idea popped into my head and now I can't get rid of it and I'm essentially coping out because I can't think of a better ending. ... Or am I just avoiding a tragic ending?
Are not some the best stories ever written Tragedies? - One of my WIP is a comedy/Tragedy -Hero gets what she wants, but it cost more than what she had willing to pay (Death of family/friends/love ones.) This is rather simple, my character, while the hero, does commit some rather dubious actions, and as a result, she is 'punished' in the end by being unable to save the woman she loves. To address this point, Tragedies would not be so powerful if the reader didn't love the character. -OJB
It's probably a mistake to confuse something being common with being indulgent. Tragedy is an inevitability in the human experience. That's why you find it so often in literature. Great love, great loss, these are two of the most powerful motivations a soul can be impacted by. I would find it more curious if I found an ending with a lack of some kind of sadness. The best work I've come across boils down to the writer talking about some aspect of what it means to be human so shying away from sadness seems quite limiting. As a reader I make a determination about whether or not I care about a character long before the ending (Usually in the first chapter or two). The ending isn't going to affect my investment so long as the arc feels natural and complete. Finally I'd suggest that all writing is on some level an indulgent activity.
I can say for sure that there is no such thing as "necessary" tragedy, only "convenient" (or inconvenient) tragedy. Necessary implies that there was no other way, which is not true to life at all because anything can happen in life. I only think about what I am trying to achieve, and whether/how a tragedy would help me achieve it. That is all there is too it. At the end of the story, no matter how natural you try to make it sound, everything that happened was in the palm of your hands from the very beginning. The story would likely not exist if you were not indulging yourself in the writing.
Tragedy certainly isn't necessary, and I don't feel that the above description makes it the best choice. If the tragic ending feels right, feels like the place that of course the story was going, that's one thing. But it doesn't sound like that's how you're feeling about it?
I wouldn't say indulgent but it can definitely be pretentious. You're assuming your character is so awesome that her death will shock us to our boots and leave us crying in our snifters, which is awesome if you pull if off, but God help you if you bungle it. As far as tragedies in general go, there's that old adage about how death is never a tragedy... it's the hubris/flaws/events that contribute to the death that are truly tragic. Speaking for myself, the death of the character as a clear mechanic to end a book (or resolve the main plot) better have something else to back it up or I won't fall for it. And if you try to pull this shit on me: I'll know it immediately and will never forgive you. Mama Potvin didn't raise any lazy readers. I'm kidding, but you sound kind of tepid on this to begin with, so unless you're cocksure you can pull it off I'd have a plan B ready (you can kill the character anyway to see how it plays) because death alone probably won't cut it. This kind of thing is great when it works but can be a dumpster fire when it doesn't.
There's honestly nothing I hate more than a character being killed off for the sake of tragedy or emotional pull. Every death should mean something, if you spend a long time developing a character and then kill them off you've wasted your own time and the reader's time. The only time you should be killing a character is when that character represents something in the story and their death is the symbolic ending of that trait, i.e: a character that represents the main character's moral compass is killed and therefore triggers the character's descent into moral apathy. Or whatever your story is about. Of course, there's no real rules of writing, so in the end it's up to what you think is right for your story. That's just my two cents, I hope that helps!! Good luck with your story
I suggest you do some plotting with each of your ideas and see where the story goes. An event should be a result of progression and not just shoehorned in because the writer wants something to happen. Trust your story, your characters and your instincts. Don't be afraid to give up a scene or dialogue if it doesn't fit. Something better will replace it. Godspeed!
I know that for me, personally, tragedy is often indulgent. I love it. Not %100 sure why, but definitely part of it is my slavish adoration of what I consider 'realism' colored heavily by the fact that I'm painfully cynical. I struggle with the notion/fact that Real Life is often senseless and cruel and awful, and I'm drawn to write that way I guess as a means to get up on my double-stacked soap boxes (I'm very short you see) and yell about it. But the thing is that ... that's not very interesting to read about. Real Life may not have any inherent structure, but it'd be pretty shitty for the book you're reading to just abruptly end because the mc you've spent all this time getting to know and love and root for forgot to look both ways and got flattened by an eighteen wheeler. The end. No closure. Sure, it's tragic, but is it a tragedy? That's how I've been trying to train myself to think about it. Does this death mean something? Does it fit into the plot/theme? Is it ironic? Is it deserved or earned? Does it still feel satisfying, even though it's sad? If not, I seriously reconsider the death. Because I know I'm a gorehound who loves to cry - I put my characters through a lotta bullshit - but the brutality needs to have a real connection to the plot or it's going to feel cheap.
As long as the tragedy at the ending is necessary for your tale, for your theme, it's not indulgent at all. It has to be. Your story stands out because of it. I'm ot a fan of deaths which have no meaning, but if this particular death has meaning, then I'm in. Go for it! In my particular case, my ending is absolutely necessary. It punches the theme home. And yes, it bothers me, very much so. The answer is the same as the above, I think. But listen to your gut, and think about what kind of story you want to tell. Try to reconcile what your gut says, with what you have written, and give it to Alphas to tell you what they get from the story. My own gut is my best guidance. Every single time it has told me that something is wrong, it proved to be, through echoing comments from my Alphas. So now I am learning to listen to it, but sometimes my mind is so in love with some idea that I resist it and don't pay attention. And every single time I pay the price and have to re-write. Listen to your gut.
Yes, this is a very good point and what I'm afraid of is that what I'm thinking might be a great read really won't be that interesting or become a major rip off for the reader. Yes, this definitely and perhaps I'm backing away from the death because the trigger for it has changed. I was going to make it a murder but I just get make the killer the killer ... I've gone soft on the character. Lol Yes! the last thing I want is for the readers to think oh thank God, he's dead. Lol This is a good point too. And I was planning on it being a kind of destined to die type thing where you could trace back the characters comments and actions that brought about the event. But I think in fiction that doesn't have the same ironic bite it has in real life when you're reading about it in like an Ann Rule true crime book. That the reader might just see behind the curtain and say well of course it's that way you designed it that way. Another good point. Well, I wanted to do this idea where a person doesn't know he has a good thing until it's gone sort of thing -- kinda like one of my favorite movies -- La Strada. There's also a bit of destiny mixed in there meaning the guy is supposed to learn this and that it's the only way he'll learn it. Just having a hard time with either executing it or maybe I need to make the tragedy more biting -- rejection instead of death. Thanks everyone for amazing feedback and your thoughts!
Personally I don't favor happy endings over sad ones or visa versa. I favor appropriate endings. Ones that don't feel forced and matches the overall tone of the story. I don't like tragic endings that come out of nowhere or happy endings that feel like they undo all the tension and hardship seen before. Stories like, the movie Ever After. Yes! Happy ending, please! Stephanie Meyer's not quite sucky as Twilight book The Host had a happy ending and it was appropriate. The Odyssey had a happy ending. But that type of ending wouldn't work for Romeo and Juliet. It would undermine the story's theme far too much. Again, it's all about an appropriate ending for the type of story that it is. If you have a story that shouldn't really end happy, but nor should it just be outright tragic, what then? Well, you can go for a bitter sweet ending, like seen in The Hunger Games or Harry Potter. Neither of those would have worked with a happy ending. There was just too much loss and conflict to ever resolve that way. A purely happy ending would have undermined their loss and sacrifice. But an out and out tragic ending would have felt like a defeat when the intent was for there to be a victory. My current favorite story is the video game Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. That has just a very weird ending. And I don't mean weird in how the rest of the game is weird. It's not happy, it's not sad... It's not really even bitter sweet. In fact, I don't what to think, and given the themes of the game, that's kind of the point. It resolved the conflict, but still leaving you thinking "Okay? Did I win? Is this winning?" It's ambiguous. There's different ways to do ambiguous endings. There's the outright cliff hanger like seen in Lady and the Tiger and Inception where the ending could be either a or b. And then there's just the whole thing of "Okay, what next?" This was seen in the end of A Series of Unfortunate Events. What happened? Well, it doesn't really say. It doesn't matter either. The only thing that matters is that the hero in some way achieved what they set out to do. These kinds of ending serve the purpose of emphasizing the journey as more important than the actual resolution. These kinds of endings work great in "hero journey" style story telling. That's all just my take on things.
I do think unhappy endings are often far less satisfying for readers than happy ones. Think of the disastrous reception to Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy ending - pretty much everybody hates it. After spending three books with Katniss, going through trials and tribulations, people wanted her to get some peace in the end. Contrast that with Harry Potter - people bitch about the epilogue, sure, but nobody complains that Harry and all his friends didn't die. They DO complain about other beloved characters being killed off. Even in horror, the most death-y of all genres, 95% of novels (and movies) end with the MC and a love interest/friend escaping the horror. There's often a final chapter/paragraph that suggests the threat isn't really over, but it's a 'happy for now' ending. Sometimes, the character's death is appropriate and an alternative ending would be a cop-out. E.g. if the book is about a character coming to terms with their terminal cancer diagnosis, it probably won't go down well if the end chapter is "OMG MIRACLE! SHE RANDOMLY WENT INTO REMISSION!" The thing is, a good book is all about conflict. The character should be constantly having to battle some kind of conflict. If you end with the character being overpowered in the ultimate way, it's just a flat-line, isn't it? The whole book is a struggle, with no respite. It doesn't feel satisfying. It doesn't play with the full range of our emotions. I'm definitely a fan of happy endings, both as a reader and writer.
In general, I think I'm a fan of 'sadder but wiser' endings, rather than either of the other extremes, but all of them can work if they are appropriate to the story, as @Kallisto indicated. As @Tenderiser pointed out, a sudden 'miracle' at the end that rescues a character from certain death doesn't really work. That's not an organic result of the rest of the story. We do have the endearing movie Last Holiday ...but somehow that worked, because the seeds to the miracle ending were sown very early on. However, the tacked-on death just to end on a note of gritty 'realism' (I'm trying to think of an example, but brain not quite in gear at the moment) would also be annoying as hell. I want the characters I've fallen in love with to live, of course, but I also want them to win. If they win, then that's a happy ending for me. If they don't win ...well, death is a possibility, as is 'sadder but wiser.' I remember the movie Children of Men, and how sad I was at the end of that. But it seemed 'right' for the story, which actually ended on a note of hope. Sooner or later, even folks who manage to dodge lots of bullets can be hit by one. The notion that a person is bulletproof doesn't really seem plausible—however happy their ending might be. Nine lives do tend to run out, eventually.
Unless I plan to write horror, I'm never going to write anything too tragic in my stories. By too tragic, I'm talking about building up a loved character and killing them off. It's not why I write. I want to write about hope and survival, and not just extend to my stories the very things I wish to avoid in world news or the inevitability of sickness and death. I'd say I'm indulgent in writing happy. Dwelling on sadness doesn't make me fulfilled. Movies stay with me for a long time and I cry over everything. I'd rather not cry at all. As a reader, I'm always anxious an author would betray me like that. I would hate on authors who do the kill-off unexpectedly or brutalise their characters unneccessarily to draw emotion. One of the reasons I've never read Outlander is because I read the author enjoyed brutalising her characters. But genre has a lot to do with it. I have expectations of romances that I don't have for other genres. When I read other genres, it's always a more clinical approach. As interesting or engaged as they might be, I'm rarely attached to these stories. I don't want to finish reading a romance and have the same reaction I had watching 'The Notebook'. Where I turn to my husband and say, "OMG...I hope you don't get Alzheimer's!'
Yeah @Tenderiser I used to be, too. But a book which resonates is more. Happily ever after doesn't cover it. I'm not trying to say that every book needs to end in disaster; far from it. The human race is about hope, about endurance, about family, love. We muddle through in our quest for hope, even if we are our own worst enemies, and books can—and should—help us in striving for what could be. So, to me there are two categories of 'good'. Good as in it leaves me with a warm, fuzzy feeling. I feel ready to tackle the world, because this book managed to give me hope. it resonates. I feel a thousand words, a million suns. Emotions? Too many to count, too contradictory. Both kinds of books are necessary. I'm not saying one is better than the other. But resonating books are the ones which don't fade. Sometimes, they end in sadness. That's just life. If I need to make a choice, I'd take this.
I'm not talking about romance - as I've often said, I'm not a big romance reader. I mostly read horror, thriller, comedy, and sci-fi. I'm talking about all books. I'm also talking more as a reader than a writer.
I find this interesting Tenderiser. You write romance but you're not a romance reader? Or have I gotten something crossed over.
I also read a whole lot of different genres (and let's not compare who's got the bigger d***, eh pile of books), but before we go down into the deep well of an argument and derail the thread: I stated that the above was my own, personal opinion. I'm not speaking for anyone else.
I disagree - in real life people die for pointless reasons, so if you want realism in your writing having every death 'mean something' will be both tiresome to the reader and unbelievable. That said I'm writing about war , and the first rule of war is that people die ... a lot of people .
I mean I say do what works for your story. Many of the classics are tragedies for a reason. They are perfect for teaching a lesson of developing darker plot points in a morbid and hopeless tale. I think The Count of Monte Cristo would be a total wiff without tragedy. I mean the movie's happy end was egregious and went against the moral of the story that revenge doesn't make you happy or get back what you lost. Just do it with reason as you do everything in writing.
I do read romance, it's just that I read a lot more horror/thriller/sci-fi type stuff. I'm pretty picky about my romance and I also find it hard to switch off analytical-author-mode when I read in my genre. It sucks sometimes! I don't understand your tone but okay, let's leave it there.
What goes through my mind...? Like most things, I guess it depends. Example: In A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham (the book, not the film), there are two tragedies that takes place, one of which is event-driven and strangely, symbolically represents the only person in the story who has managed to make a real connection with Life (yes, big L). The other tragedy in this book is thematic and concerns all the other characters having basically failed in the grand scheme. BTW, if the wikipedia page concerning this book had a face, I would punch it because it doesn't describe the book; it describes the film. Whoever wrote that wiki page never read the book. Anyway, Erich (a character omitted from the film) contracts HIV during the years when this was a death sentence. He is Jonathan's on-again-off-again lover (Jonathan being one of four main characters that include Bobby, his best friend and one-time sorta' kinda' lover; Claire, the eccentric woman they meet in New York who is Jonathan's gal-pal and becomes Bobby's lover; and Alice who is Jonathan's biological mother and also Bobby's unofficial adoptive mother). Erich's tragic moment comes at the end of the book when he's about to die. Bobby and Jonathan take him to a spring-fed pond where he wants to feel the water one last time. It's still pretty much winter and Bobby and Jonathan are confused by the request, but compliant. The water is intimidatingly cold, but the sensation is wonderful to Erich. It hurts, but he accepts the pain and acknowledges its importance and its beauty. It's a totally tear jerking, snot producing, ugly-cry moment. Bobby and Jonathan and Claire and Alice have spent their lives looking for meaning and love and only ever almost finding it because they are shackled by expectations and presumptions of what meaning and love mean. Erich's tragic moment silently tells the confused Bobby and Jonathan, who just sorta' stare at one another in embarrassment as they stand in the bitingly cold water, helping to keep Erich afloat, that: "Stop looking for the fairy tale. It doesn't exist. Love sucks and it hurts worse than this water, but it's also as beautiful and real and here as this water, and if the two of you don't open your fucking eyes to the fact that the love you need is right here, in the two of you, together, then you will have failed. " In that example, I certainly don't think it's indulgent. It's the point of the matter. It wasn't gratuitous or pornographic (I hope you understand what I mean when I say that). It was deliberate and purposeful and meaningful. If I create a tragic moment, which I have yet to actually do, I can only hope to emulate that kind of determination and purposeful intent.
