How can I make the final realisation less depressing?
Most stories carry some element of realisation. Whether that realisation is the best sort of fireball for defeating the Dark Overlord, or how I can lessen my pride to make my marriage work, the characters change and learn as the plot progresses.
I tend to think of the learning process, and by extension story structure, as occurring in three stages. But the way the stages are currently presented always seems to result in a downer ending.
A well-known three part story is as below (feel free to decide yourself what it is "I know" about)
I know :)
I don't know :(
I know that I don't know :|
Another example (about swordfights)
I am the best swordsman in my village. I am the best swordsman :)
Wow! All these swordsmen outside my village are super strong. I am the worst swordsman :(
Actually they are not naturally talented. They put in an awful lot of hard work every day to get strong as they are. :|
Another example (about media cynicism)
The news is a reliable source of information about recent events. You can learn what's going on in the world. The news is the best :)
There are many kinds of misdirection on the news. Some things are true but not "new"s. Other genuine news is lied about, misrepresented, or not reported at all. Every commentator is pushing their own agenda. No one is interested in candid discussion or objective fact. The news is the worst :(
You can still learn from the news. You just cannot take what is said at face value. Yes people are lying but they are not doing it by conscious decision. And white lies need not be a bad thing. We tell each other white lies every day. Some of your closest friendships only work because of what you omit to tell each other. On top of that the idea of presenting something 100% objective simply doesn't exist. So the problem is not solely with the news. :|
To me the third parts all sound like downer endings. let's look at the last one since it has more meat. What makes this a downer ending?
(a) "Our closest friendships" are a Good Thing and they got corrupted by the Bad Thing "Lies"
(b) Our goal was objectivity and truth. But we can never attain it because it has stopped existing
(c) The problem is not solely with the news. That means it's bigger than we thought!
I want to make these stories sound less hopeless. If I can do that I can probably adapt the idea to longer and more complex ones. But for now all I can see is. . .
- Here's a good thing
- Here's a bad thing right next to it
- Turns out the good thing was never real to begin with
How do you find the bright side of a good thing turning out to be a bad thing?
Edit: One can certainly argue that the part 3s are neither positive or negative, neither hopeful or hopeless. I probably agree with you. But in that case I think they should be about 75% hopeful to make up for the 100% hopeless of the part 2. Especially since (in these stories at least) the 100% hopeful part 1. is presented as the normal. It is our starting point. Thus the 'plot' only really begins once the 2. starts.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/27910. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
3 answers
You're missing item 4, or 3a:
"Here's another Good Thing which will allow us to win!"
In your swordfighting example:
- I can put in the same kind of work they do and become as good as they are!
On the news:
- There may never be a 100% objective news outlet, but I can study and compare, and do my research, until I can find a handful of reasonably reliable news sources, and remember what their blind spots are.
Just because the original Good Thing isn't as pure as the driven snow doesn't mean it's now 100% a Bad Thing, or that all Good Things are now corrupted. And sometimes you can still win with the 99 44/100 percent pure thing.
Your "downer ending" is the Fall from Innocence. This is a classic story arc. If you don't want a sad ending, then your Hero has to learn from the Fall and turn the Experience into Wisdom.
In Lord of the Rings, the Witch-King of Angmar is imagined to be undefeatable because Glorfindel once prophesied that "he could be killed by no man." So everyone is very depressed because it seems this Nazgûl can't be beaten. Except that "man" was very literal. It didn't mean person. It didn't mean anyone from the race of humans. So the two beings which took him down were Pippin, a hobbit (not a human), and Éowyn, a woman. There's your "downer" being overturned.
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I am not as fantasy orientated as the majority of members. Nor am I a fan of "Disney" plots, stories written for the purpose for being popular. Unfortunately the tribal nature of society does not allow for others to 'win'. Germans, terrorists, Russians, Injuns cannot be heroes in popular. Making an 'other' to be a hero or obtain the moral ground impacts sales. Any writer who defies this 'convention' is considered 'breakthrough'.
In another comment I quoted Shakespeare: "There is neither good nor bad, only thinking makes it so." Applied to an intelligent story telling can be translated as one man's hero is another man's villain.
Perspective and empathy are important in good literature. If we look at the real world we can examine the following statement.
"The only western nation who believes in capital punishment and incarcerates more of its citizens (disproportionately African-American) is obsessed with Nazis and believes they are 'bad'."
Great stories need not provide instant gratification. At the end of Bible the hero dies . . . but on reflection . . . that's okay . . . apparently he died to save our sins - who knew?
Endings of stories such as "Man of Fire", "Book of Eli", "Shane" (Did he die or not?) There was no positive ending to "Romeo and Juliet" or "Kramer vs Kramer".
It boils down to the difference between 'great literature' and 'pop literature'. If you're looking to fill your bank account tomorrow 'uplifting' stories with 'positive' endings are the way to go. If you're looking to write a great story it needs to leave something to be discussed. James Patterson will never make a college reading list.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/28324. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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A good story creates an experience. The reader draws their own conclusions and has their own emotional reactions to the experience it provided. Some will therefore find your ending more of a downer than others.
What we want from stories is not necessarily uplift. It can be understanding. It can be acceptance. Understanding and acceptance of life's limitations can be far more satisfying than a false or facile hope that we know to be false. Indeed, the facile hope can mock the understanding and undermine the acceptance, making us actually feel worse.
In other words, whatever your subject and your theme is it better to be truthful about them that to be fatuously optimistic. Any good feeling that result from false optimism is brittle, and when it breaks we can plunge into despair.
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