I don't find books with cardboard people very interesting, myself. I like complex characters who've been through some life and had to learn to deal with things.
But I keep reading editors and writers who say that there's some supposed "contract with the reader" where the ending MUST be happy and entirely satisfying.
I would say that depends entirely on what genre you're talking about. If you're writing romances--yeah, the happy ending kind of goes with the territory. It's why people read romance. They want to escape into another world and know, no matter how bad it gets, they can always count on that happy ending.
With every other genre, I think there's more room to maneuver. The ending always needs to be satisfying, or the reader feels like they've wasted their time. But satisfying doesn't necessarily mean happy. I've read books that have ripped me up, but they've still satisfied me because I felt the writer had done the job of convincing me that the book had to end the way it did. And just the opposte, of course: happy endings that are not at all satisfying because I didn't believe in the process that got me there.
I don't think editors think differently about this. But the writer does have to do the job of convincing the editor (who is, after all, just a reader on a grander scale) that the ending of the book is justified, has been worked for, and is otherwise satisfying.
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Date: 2005-07-15 10:18 am (UTC)I would say that depends entirely on what genre you're talking about. If you're writing romances--yeah, the happy ending kind of goes with the territory. It's why people read romance. They want to escape into another world and know, no matter how bad it gets, they can always count on that happy ending.
With every other genre, I think there's more room to maneuver. The ending always needs to be satisfying, or the reader feels like they've wasted their time. But satisfying doesn't necessarily mean happy. I've read books that have ripped me up, but they've still satisfied me because I felt the writer had done the job of convincing me that the book had to end the way it did. And just the opposte, of course: happy endings that are not at all satisfying because I didn't believe in the process that got me there.
I don't think editors think differently about this. But the writer does have to do the job of convincing the editor (who is, after all, just a reader on a grander scale) that the ending of the book is justified, has been worked for, and is otherwise satisfying.