Happy Endings-pun intended

Never mind how good or bad the ending will turn out, one thing I need to have is resolution. Once the dust settles, I'd like to know exactly what happened to the characters. As a writer, I think I owe my readers that much.

"Ghost in the Machine" will have a very dark ending, that much I know already. But I also know exactly where each character featured in that story will end up, so I can wrap things up nicely. The fact that "Leo and the Dragon" ends the way it does just implies I'm not quite done telling the characters' stories.

Blind_Justice said:

Never mind how good or bad the ending will turn out, one thing I need to have is resolution. Once the dust settles, I'd like to know exactly what happened to the characters. As a writer, I think I owe my readers that much.

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It would be the same ending for every story, then. They died. That's what happened to all of the characters . . . exactly . . . they died. I think the author should retain control over where the ending point for that particular story in the characters' lives is. You don't owe your readers death scenes--because that's how it's resolved for all characters . . . exactly. That's the big story resolution in the sky. Everything before that is an overlapping transition from one phase to another.

And readers will never be happy one way or another.

Kill them, you were cruel.

HEA? You wussed out.

Write 50 chapters? They still want more.

You have to decide when, how it will end and walk away from it satisfied in the knowledge you ended it the way you felt you should.

Blind_Justice said:

Never mind how good or bad the ending will turn out, one thing I need to have is resolution. Once the dust settles, I'd like to know exactly what happened to the characters. As a writer, I think I owe my readers that much.

"Ghost in the Machine" will have a very dark ending, that much I know already. But I also know exactly where each character featured in that story will end up, so I can wrap things up nicely. The fact that "Leo and the Dragon" ends the way it does just implies I'm not quite done telling the characters' stories.

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The story needs resolution, but I don't feel that the life of every character needs to be resolved. It's true, as plt says, that every character's life ends in death, but even prior to that there's a point where the story ends.

My last story featured a 22 year old woman who went through a harrowing ordeal. I ended the story with her escaping her situation, acknowledging what she learned from her adventure, and making some choices about her life. I didn't spell out the next several decades for her or point her on the path to an HEA. Readers complained. Vociferously. Too bad--that's the story. I wasn't about to chart the next 50 years for her.

soflabbwlvr said:

My last story featured a 22 year old woman who went through a harrowing ordeal. I ended the story with her escaping her situation, acknowledging what she learned from her adventure, and making some choices about her life. I didn't spell out the next several decades for her or point her on the path to an HEA. Readers complained. Vociferously. Too bad--that's the story. I wasn't about to chart the next 50 years for her.

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In one of my stories ("Sweet Sanjay") two characters had gone through quite an ordeal in both acknowledging that they had found each other (including one thinking he'd driven the other one to suicide) and I ended the story with the one that had been holding back setting off to find the other one. Readers wanted the "setting up in happy domestication together" to be spelled out. My response was that the story points to that but, realistically, there were still problems for both before they got there and I felt I'd put them through quite enough grief for this story.

I think that if a reader can't project a story to a natural resolution or a preferred one, this is their lack of imagination, not the author's. I see no reason why an author should feel obligated to write everything to the lowest common denominator of readers.

sr71plt said:

I see no reason why an author should feel obligated to write everything to the lowest common denominator of readers.

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Has it ever occurred to you, that it is these constant degrading remarks about the readers that lead to your stories not being received as well as you think they should, rather than blaming trolling or your latest "site bias"

No one likes arrogance and people are not going to read stories by someone who is continuously insulting their intelligence even to the point of sniping in his comment sections.

Of course this is a rhetorical question as the answer is nothing ever occurs to you that you don't like. Its always every one else that is to blame.