Writing Advice: Should Your Book End Happily?

At conferences, you get to hear the views of a lot of different people. At one conference I recently attended, there was a panel with some successful writers talking about how they worked.

By successful, I mean people who consistently sell their books and have contracts for more books. None of this particular group appeared on the New York Times Best Seller Lists at that time.

One writer whose work I am especially familiar with because I've read a number of her books said she knew readers like happy endings, but she had a difficult time with them because life so often didn't have happy endings.

I confess I'm one of those who wants a book to end on an upbeat note. I thought about what she said for a long time. I had to really think about the subject because I'm also a fan of series; which means characters who consistently find themselves up to their asses in alligators. What does that do to the happy ending?

After talking to a number of other writers and readers I finally realized that the problem is in definition. There are many different ways of thinking about happy endings. The simplest happy ending is the one of the sweeter fairy tales, "And they lived happily ever after."

The speaker was correct in saying life isn't like that. But she was also wrong, because there are happy pauses in our lives, moments when things are going well and we can enjoy just being where we are. This is the typical happy ending in a book in a series.

The happy ending is a moment where the characters have solved the crime, defeated the demons, recovered the treasure, arrived at a destination or found a partner. This is a moment in time when they are sitting in front of the fire, with a glass of wine in hand, listening to some favorite music. Or, in the more risqué novel, in bed with all these perks. How can you then pick up the next book with these particular characters and deal with the fact that two minutes past the "Fini" of this book Dr. Damnation shot a blast of evil power down the chimney?

Simple answer? Life is not static. It keeps moving on. Stuff keeps happening. Heroic characters create unforgiving enemies who are always plotting ways to get even with the heroes. Or, in other kinds of novels, because they have successfully solved the mystery there is another mystery someone wants them to find the solution too. Even if you don't believe in "Happily Ever After" you probably believe in those happy moments because you've experienced them yourself.

The importance of the upbeat pause at the end of a book or story cannot be underestimated. If you look at writers whose books consistently hit the best seller lists you will notice that they do tend towards those happy resting spots at the end. Not all of them have happy endings of course, there are quite a few that have ambiguous or even downright unhappy endings; but I think if you look at the Best Sellers shelf you will find that more than half do have something of a happy ending.

Something else to think about; just what is a happy ending? If a book is a romance by a woman, written for women, it will most likely end with the couple together and the promise of them staying together. The formation of a lasting relationship is regarded as a happy ending in these stories and woe betide the writer that breaks this contract. On the other hand a different sort of romance has the ending of the hero riding off into the sunset without acquiring a partner. Usually this is a romance written by a man with the intent of reaching a broader (i.e. men as well as women) audience. In this romance the protagonist will lose the heroine. Why? Because for some, perhaps even many, men that is the happy ending; he isn't stuck with the same woman until she is wrinkled, gray and sagging in all the important places. He had a great love and can always look back on her as she was; his, at the height of her beauty.

Do these rules apply for a trilogy or quartet? I think so. An ending that promises a bit of peace and comfort for the characters, yet hints at further adventures to come is the aim here. You want your readers to pick up the next book after all. In a series you can provide the happy ending and not worry too much about hinting at future events. After all, if you are writing a successful series, your readers are coming back even though they know good and well that happy ending is going to be smashed to smithereens in the opening of the next book. It's expected.

The important thing to always remember is that a happy ending is a temporary resting spot, not a permanent stop. If you remember this you can gleefully write that happy ending, all the while knowing that Thor is throwing a bolt of lightening at your characters even as you type.