I have thought about this a lot and so I turn to you what is the ideal end to a story? Teary eyes or happy ending?
One that answers enough questions to be satisfying, and yet leaves enough questions unanswered so that there's still something to think about and ponder. I don't want all the answers.
I dunno how B.I.G became notorious. Unless you mean the first part, which is actually my answer. Even though the whole "It was all a dream" end can seem like a cop-out. I also like the sad yet hopeful ending to things.
"and everyone burst into flames and ran around screaming, til a giant Godzilla foot came down and stomped everything flat." (this is what I write when I get stuck.)
Depends on the read I suppose, but generally I'm in the "not quite all the answers" camp with @Wreybies - I don't want -- or need -- binary resolutions to everything; I want the story to be tied up (although there is room for a little I wonder whether she ever... or did he...?), but to be left contemplating real life/history/politics/the future...
I'd prefer a more complex ending. MC gets what they wanted but it doesn't work out well. Or MC doesn't get what they wanted but it does work out well.
@Homer Potvin took my answer, so... The one you don't see coming. ETA: Furthermore, I dislike endings where everything is tied up nicely, and everything turns out well just for the sake of having a happy ending. I'll take the ending that the story has been building towards, thanks. I want the logical conclusion. I guess that might contradict "the one you don't see coming", but there you go. I want to be blindsided, but in a way that makes sense in retrospect.
Whatever you promised make good on that promise. Also be true to your genre don't get too artsy. If you're whole story basically promises an upbeat ending and your betray that for me that's a lousy ending. Most readers want a sense of accomplishment, hope, justice, victory, love. If you don't make good on this there better be a good reason and a sense that the downbeat ending was coming. 1984 had a perfect ending because the whole book is a moral - there are no survivors in this future. It's a warning. The ending is chilling but correct.
All I care about are happy endings no matter how unrealistic it may be. Although there is a place in my heart for those complex mysterious endings. And I find they work really well with horror. But if it's a book that I'm really really attached to I get really disappointed with sad or unresolved endings, then it keeps pecking at me and bothering me for a while. There are books I didn't finish reading because I knew they were not going to end good. I'm probably just over sensitive but for the sake of my sanity just give me a happy ending! I beg you!
An ending that finally explains something that has been baffling the reader is a typically good ending. The Twilight Zone Episodes make constant use of such endings. The episode, To Serve Man, is an example. Aliens claim to have arrived to serve man and what they really meant was to serve man on a dinner plate. That answered the baffling question concerning their seemingly selfless generosity. Another typically good ending is where justice is served. Most audiences derive moral satisfaction from seeing villains get their just deserts. The film Dirty Harry where that maniacal killer is finally blown away after eluding justice during the entire film is one example.
I read 1984 differently. Yeah, Winston is brain washed, and likely going to disappear, but the story was written in 3rd person past tense and on page 6, when Newspeak is introduced, there's a footnote saying, "Newspeak was the official language of Oceania. For an account of it's structure and etymology, see Appendix." Taking the Appendix as a part of the narrative, the whole novel to that point can be taken as a historical account written farther in the future and written in non-newspeak explaining the defunct system. Showing that even though the world was heck, and everyone involved at that time couldn't see a way out, that system does fall. So while 1984 may end on a down for the characters, it still ends on an up in the greater narrative.
I think it depends on what the genre is as well as the tone of the story. (Series not withstanding, due to those who write long series don't really seem to have a clue on how to properly end a story). From what I understand the modern thing to do is have a 'Happy Ending'. I like the kind that leave that ambiguity, where you wonder what's going down the road past the last page. Cliff hangers are a kinda FU to the reader if it is a standalone book. I think overall it is satisfying to make it to the end of a story where the main plot points are resolved, without pulling that last second twist bullshit (or other random out of nowhere shit) that doesn't fit into the original story you just read. Similarly the endings that make the last 300-400 pages mean absolutely nothing, and leave you disappointed due to finding out that everything that you have just read turns out to not have ever happened in those final moments. Which kinda pisses me off, when you consider everything that you just read, had no bearing on the resolution to the overall narrative and plot, to find out that at the end that all the things and characters were not even 'real', and wasted their time working towards a non-goal.
Depends on the type of story. If it's part of the series, the ending of the book has to leave something for the next book to tie into, if it's on it's own, it needs to finish the story entirely, with enough wiggle room that readers can still think about the story and stuff, but tight enough that they don't expect Round 2 for the most part.
