MESSAGE BOARD TOPIC #28

[Comicality]

In all of the stories I've read online, out of all the ones I've personally WRITTEN online, it has always been my desire to see the main characters come out on top. Then again, much like it is in adult movies...if you see a real cutie pie walk on the screen...you KNOW he's gonna be getting naked at SOME point in the flick! Hehehe, so it's just a matter of time until this happens. Anyway, most stories read like fairy tales almost. Concentrating on that one special occurrence when all the bullshit gets pushed aside and the good guy actually WINS for a change!

 

BUT...what about stories that don't share this same philosophy? What about the ones that end in some sort of tragedy? The question for this week is...

 

=What do you think about writing or reading stories that don't have those fairy tale 'happy endings' that most people are expecting?=

 

Do you find the unhappy endings more 'realistic'? Or do they come off as disturbing and bitter? Do they affect the story as a whole? Can they be done tastefully, where the ending may not be what the readers expected, but are left with a sense of hope?

 

Basically, what are the advantages and DISadvantages of writing or reading stories with 'less than joyful' conclusions? Let us hear your thoughts!

 

The board is open!

[ethan thorn]

i like happy endings.

 

but with my story watch for a twist.

[Myr]

I, too, like happy endings. But I also love twists and turns.

[Guest Nate]

Well, here shall be my first ever post on this site as for the endings of stories, i LOVE happy endings. i hate it when there is a sad ending, by way of death or a relationship doesnt work out, or something to that extent. it leaves a bad after taste, and for me, can ruin an entirely wonderful story. i use stories as a way to escape my life and go somewhere else, somewhere happier, and i find that if it doesnt end happily it can actually be quite the downer. so now before i actually will read a story i will check out the ending first to see whether it ends happily or not . however sometimes i get caught up in an unfinished story, and so as new chapters are released i keep hoping that it will end well.

 

oh, and excuse my lack of grammar, punctuation, and capitalization... it is currently 4:31am where i live and at this point i couldnt care less.

[Sparhawk]

I too love happy endings.

 

However, there are a few stories that do not have happy endings that I do still enjoy and feel that it was worth while reading. But, they must leave you with at least a sense of hope.

 

I use to be an avid fan of Stephen King until I read "it" that was the last book of his I read until he did his book "On Writing" which I have in both hard copy and audio. By reading that book I came to understand why I became so down on his books. He clearly states in that he writes purley for the horror, that is what he enjoies. I did read "Dreamcacthers" when it came out and was very relived that there was that "sense of hope" in it.

 

One more example of a book that has a bad ending, but yet it still has a "sense of hope" would be "Pay it Forward". I absolutely hated the ending. Will I read it again? Oh yes, I will.

[Crackerwriter]

As both reader and writer I probably have to say I prefer happy endings to outright sad ones. And yet I have written one myself that wasn't quite the happy ending that readers were probably expecting.

 

It was at a time when people who wrote emails asking when the next chapter would appear, suddenly stopped writing and I began to wonder whether anyone was actually reading it anymore. I plodded on for a couple of months, churning out roughly one chapter a month.

(You must realise here that I was also writing about three other stories as well)

So I stopped it dead at that point, to see if anyone actualy enquired what had happened to the next chapter. Result? One email. I suppose that put me in a kind of vindictive mood!

 

I guess I got fed up with writing it at that stage and did a nasty! I wrote out the main characters in the title in that chapter in a complete twist, yet salvaged a reasonably good result in the end. The story? 'Simon and Ricky'.

 

I can think of one instance though where there's a sad ending, but the ending is a satisfactory one, but actually in this case it was a film, namely 'Gladiator'.

 

Mostly though, a sad ending gives you a kind of depression and you have mixed feelings about the whole thing. The only time it works well is if there an impending sequel where you just know "the baddies" are going to get their just desserts!