Should we expect them as readers? Should we write them as authors? How do we resolve a story without falling back on the old Disney cliché?
Disney movies such as Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, and Cinderella all make use of the trope known as the story-tale happy ending. While happy endings can be as diverse as any plot mechanism, Disney classics tend to fall into a standard model
- Prince saves Beauty
- Beauty becomes Princess
- Prince and Princess live happily ever after
The more you read the more you will realize that outside of fairytales, literature tends to abhor happy endings. Instead, a great bevy of literature relies on a much different kind of ending—the standard resolution. The standard resolution refers to the ‘wrapping up’ of story events. Characters achieve their desired ends, whether those ends are deemed good or evil.
Literature is changing—it’s evolving, to borrow a term from the Life Sciences. Today a resolution can be, and is frequently, ambiguous. Think of books like The Road, wherein the resolution involves some imagination on the part of the reader. Ambiguous endings may not feel as satisfying as standard resolutions, but they can leave the reader with a permanent yearning, a desire to unravel the mystery of the ending. Sometimes ambiguous endings hint at dire resolutions.
The unhappy ending, still a form of the standard resolution, can upset readers. Writers are often warned not to write unhappy endings, for fear of provoking readers. Unhappy endings are so unpopular that true occurrences in literature are rare.
Myself, I prefer standard resolutions with a pinch of ambiguity. In essence, I strive to resolve or hint at resolving events. I abhor happy endings, as I feel they cheapen writing and upset the natural culmination of events. I despise most of all unearned happy endings.
How do I avoid unearned resolutions? I get to know my characters. I study them closely and follow the chain of events that unfolds in the story. Quite often, if an ending feels unearned, it is not the ending that is flawed but rather something in the middle of the story.