Sour with the sweet?

[Boondocker42]

I have a topic of discussion that is partially practical, partially philosophical and maybe a little bit self-promotional.

How do people feel about a story being "nice" and having a happy ending vs a story a little more believable and maybe a bit of a downer? I'm asking strictly from the perspective of the Literotica audience.

The thing is I have one story that I feel is pretty good and most of the comments agree that is well written etc. However, the story ends on a sour note. I wrote it that way because it seemed like a reasonable outcome. But the "bummer ending" really seems to have turned opinions against the story as a whole.

I'm conflicted; cater to the squeaky wheels or just go where I feel like the story should go? Let me say that I'm not just seeking validation of my vision here. I believe that a major purpose of writing a story is to satisfy the audience. Maybe I'm most interested in confirming what the majority opinion is... slightly more believable characters and outcomes vs. wall to wall happiness?

I'm not going to even get into the whole "Loving Wives" controversy/insanity. I'm just excluding the opinion of the people that get hung up on that from consideration.

The story in questions is https://www.literotica.com/s/stacy-lancaster-fond-farewell-pt-01

As a contrast, another story that is more or less wall to wall happiness is https://www.literotica.com/s/wendys-lament . Just as a contrast

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm guessing that most folk come to literotica for a bit of an escape (this observation is based on zero empirical evidence - well, maybe comments to my stories if that counts); it therefore follows that absolute realism (ie your downer ending) is probably not what most people want. They've got plenty of reality in their own lives. So it follows that happy endings, like in a massage parlour, will keep most folk happy.

What you need to figure out is whether you are writing for an audience (you say you want to satisfy your audience), or writing for yourself. It's happiness or truth. If you're lucky, you have both mixed up together, but where's the tension in that?

But you won't find a "majority" opinion here. What you'll find here are a couple of ragged ass opinions from a bunch of non-representative writers who don't know shit from clay, me included.

Perhaps an illustration might help - not so long ago there was a writer here wondering why nobody liked his story. Several people pointed out that heroin addiction and erotica were possibly not the most appealing combination.... But it's real, he cried. Maybe, we answered, but not very sexy.

Anyway, I think you're answering your own question.

 

[sr71plt]

I think that appreciably more readers at Lit. want happy endings than are happy with natural/realistic endings. That doesn't keep me from putting the ending on stories that I want to, but it prompts me to anticipate lower scores and maybe a comment or two on the ending for those stories.