Before I start the post, I want to let you know that a poem of mine for adults (pretty sad, about the death of my mother) is in a collection of short poems called Bigger Than They Appear, which just came out. This isn’t a book for kids. So far I’ve read only a few of the poems, so I can’t vouch for language or subject matter for young readers. But if you’re in high school and above and interested, here’s the link to the publisher’s site where you can get a copy: http://www.accents-publishing.com/biggerthantheyappear.html. My poem is called “This Is Just to Say.” For those of you who recognize the title, my poem is based on a poem with the same name by William Carlos Williams.
On July 25th, 2011, Farina wrote, I mostly write fan fiction, usually one-shots, but today I looked back at my work and realized most of it was tragedy. I almost always follow the same pattern (and even sometimes with the same characters!) one side of the love interest gets hurt/dies. Funeral/waiting for help/backup scene or touching scene about how they can’t stop and abandon the mission. Surviving character goes into deep depression and seclusion, if other one survives, (it’s usually the male that goes into the depression) looks like she has it all together but is also depressed, 1) Committing suicide, 2) Ends with them crying/sighing/just sitting there sadly. How can I break away from tragedy and violence? (because while I’m too young to use sexual themes in my stories, I do use an awful lot of violence) Because I enjoy, however morbid it seems, a character’s hopelessness, depression, and loneliness, however, not many, if any, readers enjoy that sort of thing. I also don’t have a problem with death at all (though some of my stories have made me cry) and enjoy writing death scenes (I have one for every character I’ve written about) and love writing about topics like insanity and death. But when I try to write funny, happy stories, I reread them and I realize there is a definite ‘Fake Smiling’ air to them. How can I write happier stories without seemingly trying too hard?
This may be tragic (joke) to say, but what you’re writing right now may be what you need to write right now. In a year or two you may be effortlessly heading in another direction.
And in defense of what you’re doing, it’s excellent to be thorough. If you go deep into a character’s unhappiness, if you make it believable and specific to that particular character, you’ve achieved a lot. If your suffering character is sympathetic, your reader will be with him. She may cry, but she’ll be engaged.
Still, if you’re determined to change, here are a few ideas:
Push on after your ending. If your hero Lance is depressed but hasn’t committed suicide, write the arc of his recovery. You can make this slow and detail all his slumps back into misery, but the trajectory should be upward toward a better life. You can end then on a hopeful note. If he has killed himself, continue on to his survivor, his sister Leslie, for instance, who has to come to terms with the loss and find her way to happier days.
Get interested in minor characters who aren’t miserable. Let Lance be despondent. Go to town on him. But also develop some other characters who are cheerier. Think of people you know and how they don’t let adversity destroy them. Even think of yourself, merrily writing wretchedness.
Impose a quota on misery. Allow yourself one episode of doldrums per story, which can be at the beginning, middle, or end. The rest has to be something else, which doesn’t have to be jumping-up-and-down joy – can be action, anger, intellectual reasoning, dialogue, relationship-building, whatever.
Remove the reason for the depression. Don’t kill off the love interest. Have the two quarrel instead, or have the love interest be captured, so the hero has to act not mope.
Go even further and make it funny. Have Lance meet Lily, an equally depressed person, possibly a new love interest. Let them get so enchanted with their sadness that they create new causes for it. Have them slash their stuffed animals, or, if you go over to the dark side, do worse. If you push it enough, it will be funny, and your readers will be laughing and wanting more.
Explore other genres. The alternative to tragedy isn’t necessarily a smiley face or a happy-ending love story. There are thrillers and mysteries and historical novels and adventure stories. Try one of these.
Often, the problem with the smiley face, in my opinion, is sentimentality, and sentimentality often comes from generalizing, from statements like, “I knew she would always be there for me,” or “I realized how special we both were.” Detail takes out the sentimentality. What do you do when you’re happy? What does your best friend do? Maybe you hug someone, but maybe you get uncomfortable and make fun of the feeling because it’s too good. Maybe your best friend gets quiet because she has to absorb the news, because joy is new to her. Maybe your cousin keeps his happiness secret because he’s afraid people will be jealous. Lance can do any of these too, if he emerges from his funk, and the reader will understand if she knows Lance. None of these will feel fake because they’re rooted in detail and character.
Also, it usually doesn’t work to dwell on happiness. I bet we’ve all experienced this in books we’ve read and loved: we adore the characters and follow them through vicissitudes of every stripe. Finally they win out, and two pages later the book ends. Unfair! Four hundred pages of trial and struggle, two of triumph. We want more! We want to wallow in their success. We want to revel with them. But that part quickly falls flat. So even if you want to write happier, you’ll still probably need to keep the joy short.
A few prompts:
∙ Pick the happy ending of a book you adore, one that made you want to bathe in your beloved characters’ joy. Indulge yourself and write a final chapter that is solid good times, good feelings. Put in action, a real scene, but no suspense, no worry. I suspect this may be hard, but I think it can be done. Maybe it will even improve the actual book. Try it.
∙ Lance’s friends and family plan an intervention to blast him out of his depression. The intervention doesn’t merely have to be a meeting; it can be anything. Have the other characters reveal themselves in the ways they use to reach Lance, in the appeals they make. If you’re not Farina, you can have them fail or succeed, whatever you like. But if you’re Farina, Lance has to cheer up. And whoever you are, avoid the fake smiley face feeling if Lance does come out of his doldrums.
∙ Departing from this prompt and building on Jenna Royal’s question from the end of last week, write a story in which one of the main characters never makes an appearance. She is there only in the thoughts and feelings and dialogue of other characters. Give her depth and individuality. Make the reader know her as well as the characters who are present.
Have fun, and save what you write!
Agnes says:
I don't think I could tragedy,because I lovvvve happy endings. Someone who's endings I love is Louisa May Alcott, her endings were the type that ties everything up, I love that.
melissajm says:
I have the opposite problem. I don't always think of enough ways to make things hard for my characters, and people have described some of my characters as "too nice" to be believable.
Rina says:
In the climax/denoumont of my NaNovel, I'm trying to keep in mind the "impose a quota on misery." It's not easy, considering what's going on in my climax… Hmm.
Requien says:
I have a question about Romances. I have a 4 part/book series planed, but the first one is mostly getting to know the characters, and doesn't really have a plot. I'm trying to come up with a plot that can make it not completely romance driven since that really isn't my thing, but its not working. Do you have any suggestions for making a story less romance driven and more plot driven?
Melissa says:
Gail- Have you read The Hunger Games? If you haven't you can answer my question the best you can because it can apply to any book really. The ending in the last book left me feeling kind of empty. Like I was dropped off a cliff and never landed. The author practically killed off all the characters and it was extremely depressing. Her other series Gregor the Overlander was like that too. I felt so bad for the Main Character. Is this a bad way to end a book? Or is it good to have the reader brood over it because he/she is so emotionally attached? I'm not saying I write like that but I wanted to know if you had any strong opinion on it. I'm not sure weather I'd like my reader to feel like that.
Charlotte says:
@Melissa–I don't know about Gregor the Overlander (haven't read those), but I think the way HG ended was necessary for that specific story–it's all about war and being damaged and having to deal with stuff you're not emotionally equipped for, and with all the horrors Katniss had already experienced, even before the story even started, I think a truly happy ending would have been even more of a letdown than the one we got. So I suppose my point is that it depends on the story: the tone of the ending should somewhat match the tone of the story itself. All books obviously have problems, but I think the problems are darker and heavier in books like HG, and that kind of heaviness, that loss, can't (and shouldn't) be escaped.
That being said, I still can't reread Mockingjay without wanting to kill myself. The depressing factor didn't hinder me the first time round because I still wanted to know what would happen, and mostly the plot is able to carry through that level of heaviness. But I think there's a very specific kind of reader that can stand that kind of book and that kind of ending, and so while it's not necessarily a "bad" way to end a book, it's a… risky way, I guess.
A long answer to a question not even directed at me, but I could talk about the Hunger Games ALL DAY… 🙂
gailcarsonlevine says:
Melissa–I haven't read THE HUNGER GAMES, but Charlotte's thoughts about the consistency of tone make a lot of sense to me.
Requien–A romance plot is still a plot, but you might give one or more of your characters a problem that has nothing to do with love.
melissajm says:
A bit off topic, sorry, but I wanted to thank Gail for her "12 ideas" suggestion in Writing Magic. I'd been stuck for a while when I read that, so I tried it, and at #8 I thought "Oo, now THERE'S a twist I hadn't thought of!" So let's see how that works.
(And I used this to write the list, which was fun: http://writtenkitten.net/ )
writeforfun says:
Requien – I don't know how flexible your book is depending on what has to happen in the ones that follow it, but could you just invent some problems that have to be solved? They could be minor, like one character's emotional struggles and how they play out in her life, or big, like something be stolen and a daring chase to get it back. Or a thousand other things. Even emotional struggles being battled and solved count as plots to me. Just my thoughts.
Rina says:
I finished reading the last GREGOR book around 2 in the morning not too long ago. I did not honestly expect the ending to be what it was, and I didn't like it much. For MOCKINGJAY I sort of expected it… though ever since the mid of book 2 I knew it wasn't going where I wanted it to… but with the GREGOR books I really didn't like it. On the other hand, this might an opinion of mine. I admit that it seemed to be built up to throughout the plot.
On the other hand…
I myself think that it's best to let your character have a bit of a reward at the end. There are some troubles that are plot-appropriate and some that are simply too much. Mercy ought to be shown once in a while.
Again, this is what I think… I know others may have different tastes…
(PHEW. I get emotional about Suzanne Collins books.)
Jenna Royal says:
On a similarly-related note –
Does anyone have any thoughts on open or unresolved endings? I've been fascinated with endings lately that don't end up where you think they do, or that don't really end at all. How do you make one that's still satisfying, even though it's unexpected?
gailcarsonlevine says:
Jenna Royal–I'm adding your question to my list, but I'd welcome other people's thoughts.
Clara Warford says:
Mockingjay annoyed me, mostly cause this one character that died and then I was sure they would be alive, but they weren't.
PS. I didn't say any names, or he/she in case people haven't read it yet and are going to 🙂
welliewalks says:
I have another question. In my NaNoWriMo novel (I'm not finishing it but I'll reach my word count goal) there are some.. bits where the 'mean girl' fights with one of my MC's best friends. My problem? I'm not very, well, catty and I have no idea what to write for my snarky character and good comebacks. How can I write these few scenes without it coming across as a)boring b) yeah right, that's ridiculous or c)really childish?
@Melissa- I haven't read any of those books (I hear that I really should!) but I have read a lot of books like that. To be honest, it kinda wrecks my day, because I feel so depressed. I think it's a matter of taste… but I don't want to read or write books like that. However, I'm not into PERFECT endings, you know where it's kinda cliche or even if it's not cliche, it's like 'Yeah right, that'd never happen.'
writeforfun says:
Welliewalks – have you tried yet? This will sound funny, but in my last book, I had man who was a true villain, and there was a scene where I had to make him basically destroy one of my MC's with hurtful words (if I can put it that way). The amazing thing is, I'm about the meekest, most timid person ever when it comes to words and I really should have had a hard time writing him, but he was a piece of cake. All I had to do was think, "how would this character speak?" and "how can he hurt her the most deeply?" I don't know if it would work the same with a catty girl, but I just made him poke at her insecurities and offend her in the places that it would hurt her the most. Villains, it seems, aren't dumb; they think about how they can best wound their enemy.
P.S. Way to go! I could never do a NANO
Melissa says:
Thanks everybody! I'm glad I wasn't the only one a bit depressed by the endings Collins writes. I love her books though!
Charlotte says:
@welliewalks–I might try doing some research. Pay attention when you hear people fighting, watch movies/TV shows/read books with catty characters, try to get into the mean girl's head and see where she's coming from, and what weaknesses she sees in the other girl. writeforfun's suggestion was really good too, I think. Comebacks, I find, are a little harder to do. People seem to come up with those perfect, witty lines right on the spot, and I never think of anything until a couple hours after the fight. Here, I think it's really important to get into the head of the person saying the comeback. Witty banter is easier to write when it's not you who's saying it, but the character him/herself. ….Does that make sense?…
Brianna says:
@melissajm– on the topic of making things hard, in my NaNo Novel, I'm trying to make things as difficult as possible to keep the story going. I just poisoned my characters and dropped them out of a plane because I needed ten more pages. 😉 Then they got shot at, one MC lost a lot of blood, then they found a missionary with a private plane that flew them to the enemies lair. So I guess it's working out… o.O
@Melissa– I disliked the HG for that exact reason. of course, it did leave me guessing a bit, maybe made me think out a few different scenes, but for the most part, I felt sorely ripped off. Like, 'I read this entire book and this was the best ending you could give me?!' Maybe Suzanne Collins just enjoys endings like that. I think that readers will mostly be satisfied if your ending pretty much wraps things up (but obviously not in the way of killing off all your MCs), but leaves a little to the imagination. Every Soul A Star by Wendy Mass is fantastic in this sense; she masterfully ends the novel in a satisfying way but makes you think, 'But what will happen after?' You want endings like that… you want readers to be begging you for a sequel! Some series books are really good at that; they can be stand-alone, like if a bored reader just picks up the third one instead of read #1 first, followed by #2, etc, etc. Just my two cents.
welliewalks says:
@writeforfun and Charlotte- thank you so much for your advice! It's really helpful. I tried (yesterday, a while after I asked and before I read your answers) and came up with something okay, but I'm so glad that I can have time later to improve it. You're answers made a lot of sense. I'm going to spend some time studying this girl and getting into her head, seeing what she wants to accomplish as a whole and how. Thank you!
melissajm says:
Brianna- Maybe I need to rent a plane to drop a few characters from. 😉
Someone did pull a knife on the hero…