Should I end my story with a happy or sad ending? [closed]
Closed by System on Aug 23, 2018 at 22:27
This question was closed; new answers can no longer be added. Users with the reopen privilege may vote to reopen this question if it has been improved or closed incorrectly.
I am writing a romantic short story and I don't know which type of ending suits my story better. Currently my characters fall in love but one ends up "cheating" (they were never dating or anything) she tries to go on with her life but cant. She gets a chance to see him again and tells him she loves him. I'm not sure whether to make a happy ending where everything goes perfectly or to make an ending where he tells her he doesn't love her. (even though he does).
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/38433. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
2 answers
You are accessing this answer with a direct link, so it's being shown above all other answers regardless of its score. You can return to the normal view.
Personally I would prefer the open end. In romance, there are no happy or sad endings.
Let's take the scene:
... but one ends up "cheating" ...
So: One person was cheating on the other, even considered that they were in love, without telling each other (correct me if this is wrong, that was what I assumed from your text) ... so the most obvious thing would be hate, disgust or something bad ... in that case the sad ending.
Then you wrote
... She gets a chance to see him again ...
That's where I'm hooked. If you look from the human point of view: Who would be with someone, who cheated on you? I assume from your telling, that he was the one who cheated. Why was he cheating? Was there a reason? If there was a reason, did he had doubts about the woman?
If you look at it pragmatically, there is no happy ending per se. The most awesome endings are the open endings. The reader can think of a ending for himself or imagine what happens after that.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38436. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
0 comment threads
I don't think this should preclude a happy ending.
From what you write, it looks to me like a girl, that was not even "dating or anything" boy X but was "in love" with him, had sex with another boy Y. Perhaps she was drunk or high. Perhaps she had some previous relationship with boy Y and it went further.
To my mind, there is no relationship, she and boy X haven't done anything to suggest they are supposed to be faithful. It is implausible for readers to believe they have sworn undying fidelity before their first kiss or date. She may regret having sex with boy Y, but she wasn't cheating and boy Y had no right to believe she was.
You haven't told us enough to make his rejection of her plausible, unless he is just a prude and cannot forgive her for having sex without love of this other boy. This might be due to a repressed culture, as well.
But in the USA, the average age at which women lose their virginity is 16.3 years, and the average age of first marriage in the USA is currently 27 (women) and 29 (men). That is a good 10 years after, and ten sexually active years for most of them. Somehow, all those men and women getting married have "gotten over" their spouse's previous sexual lives, if they even felt there was something to get over. It is not at all common, in the USA, for either men or women to marry as virgins, but they do get married and after that most of them remain faithful to their spouse while married.
There is no reason your story cannot have a happy ending, this all depends on whether the girl has a good excuse for her tryst with boy Y. You can make boy X a jerk, or worthy of love for putting whatever hurt he felt aside in order to try again with her. If he actually DOES love her, then he should be willing to make that sacrifice, otherwise he's a prude and a jerk, whose ego is more important to him than either his own happiness or the happiness of the girl he supposedly loves. That is some kind of mental illness, in my book.
0 comment threads
0 comment threads