Must a story remain dark to remain anchored to reality? Are the people who enjoy happy endings unrealistic dreamers?
I’m a happy ending sort of person, and not afraid to admit it. Don’t get me wrong—some of my favorite novels and movies are the ones that send my sister running to a happier story and me running to the Kleenex box because of a bittersweet finish—but I couldn’t survive without a healthy dose of safety. I’m not asking for Disney’s Happily Ever After every time, and I don’t even always believe in it, but I need to know that things are going to be okay.
Enter my introduction to reading and writing contemporary short fiction. As I read, story after story left me feeling stressed, headachy, and sick to my stomach. If I read too many, I wound up depressed. As I wrote and watched fellow students work, I saw story after story come back marked as unbelievable. Too pat. Too sentimental. Looking back at my first attempts to tell a story, I understand. To make things easier on ourselves, we often make things too easy on our characters. I get it. But how far does “too happy” reach? Where did we get the idea that only the darkness of death, disaster, or depression is going to be convincing? There must be some other way, some compromise, so I started hunting.
I found Haruki Murakami’s collection After the Quake. It was the first thing I read for capstone, and for the first time, I came away from an immersion in short fiction feeling not sick and depressed, but pleasantly hopeful and connected to the characters.
The characters in these six stories are all realistic, everyday people in tough places, but something felt different as I read their tales. The final story’s final paragraph ended with a character recognizing what I think made the difference:
“I want to write stories that are different from the ones I've written so far, Junpei thought. I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so that they can hold the ones they love. But right now I have to stay here and keep watch over this woman and this girl. I will never let anyone—not anyone—try to put them into that crazy box, not even if the sky should fall or the earth crack open with a roar.” –Haruki Murakami, “Honey Pie”
Stories that are different. Stories about people who hope. Beauty. That’s what Murakami created in this story, though without reading the story you’re missing the context of just how monumental these decisions (to write happier stories and be the hero for the people he loves) are in the growth of the protagonist. It’s how Murakami ended each of these stories, and I wholeheartedly believed them. Reading his words gave me hope—not only for my own writing, and my fear of conforming to the dark picture of life that’s easily found in literary fiction, but also for the world around me.
What about you? Do you believe happy endings? Depressing situations? As a writer, do you feel any obligation to show the world in a hopeful light, or isn’t that how you see the world around you?
I'm so glad someone else feels this way about contemporary short stories! There have been a few short stories throughout the college years that have left me feeling hopeful at the end, but not many. Much like you, I was usually left feeling fairly depressed. Many of the stories are grotesque in such a gritty way that they almost feel unreal...like some sort of bizarre circus life that maybe some people live, but not most.
ReplyDeleteIn my own writing, I've found that I can't write happy things well. I tried to write a happy poem once. It was awful. I scrapped it and started over entirely. Once I tried to write an upbeat story with a pleasantly quirky main character. I finished it, but it fell flat. I never went back to polish it, and I probably never will. So I, too, stick to the depressing stuff when I write simply because it seems to be the only thing I can write halfway decently. Unfortunately, this is only contributing to the problem.
I would argue that it's harder to write "happy" emotions that feel real and connect with your audience than it is to write said feelings. So many people can connect to an emotionally tragic event, even if they've never experienced something like it in their own lives, that it sucks them in and the story feels meaningful. There are a lot of happier stories that I think don't pull that off quite as well, and so we don't read them for school because we're trying to learn to be good writers.
I think I just rambled for a while, but that's my basic view on things. And I don't think all depressing literature is bad, either. It's not even a need for a happy ending; it's that some of it seems to go too far into the realm of unrealistic negative emotions just for the sake of having negative emotions to connect to.
What a dilemma! I know what you're talking about, and it's true--so many contemporary short stories seem so dreary or depressing, but if you give them happy endings then they're too unbelievable and "happily ever after." Honesty is such a huge challenge when it comes to writing a good story! I usually find that with the strongest stories I've come across, whether hopeful or dismal, there is a level of satisfaction that comes by the end. The conclusion wraps it up, leaving enough space for the characters' lives to continue outside of the story but bringing the conflict to a satisfying resolution. I've also realized that it seems much easier to end a story on a lower note, and it strikes me that this might possibly be because you don't have to worry about wrapping it up to the satisfaction of both readers AND characters. I think the trick to this lies in how you face the conflict and set it up, working through it in such a way that a happy ending is believably possible, but far from being definite. But it is difficult to tell where the lines are and how to balance everything without getting carried away on any point.
ReplyDeleteI read that same collection by Murikami for Adv. Writing of Fiction, but I had never considered it in light of happy (or at least, non-tragic/depressing/sad) endings. It makes me want to reread that collection with these thoughts in mind to see what comes of it.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with your dilemma. I think it's almost more difficult to end a story on a bright note than on a dismal one. For some reason, displaying joy and sunshine is harder to do well than displaying tragedy and rain clouds. For this reason, I really admire the authors who can end happy and do it well. I do think that part of the reason a happy ending is so hard to write well and so hard to accept as literary readers is because we all know that in real life, things don't end perfectly happy. Hardly ever. Even if you and your best friend make up after your big fight, there are still the feelings remaining afterward. The regret. The weight of the past mistakes. And, going forward, there will be more challenges and hills to climb. I think we tend to see life in the challenges rather than in the downward slopes. Ending a story with everyone coasting happily along is hard to do because the reader knows that they are only coasting toward another mountain.
I agree with Heidi! I think it's easier to end stories with darkness than light--physically easier. It takes less work. I think maybe this is because we put characters in the valleys, or they fall in against our will, and it's easier to leave them there (a type of resolution, realizing that they're stuck) than it is to drag them out.
DeleteIt makes me glad God is God and I'm not. I'd probably be too lazy and depressed to do anything after the Garden of Eden.
But he didn't stop there! And neither (I humbly submit) should we.
Elizabeth, that excerpt was beautiful, and it really made me feel hopeful too. I actually looked up After the Quake and thought about reading it, but I haven’t gotten that far yet.
ReplyDeleteI’ve thought about this question too. It’s almost disheartening when a professor tells you that your hopeful ending is too pat. Well, I’m sure there’s another way to word it, but what if that really happened? Life isn’t all depression. There are plenty of moments of happiness and blessings, especially with Jesus as our Savior. So why shouldn’t we be able to put those in our writing? Then again, we should be able to produce those scenes in an artful way. If we don’t do that, then there’s no point really. The only way that we’ll be able to get an audience to believe the story, depressing or happy, is to write it well. If we don’t have that down, then we shouldn’t really be complaining about what we can’t add to the writing.
I totally agree, Jessica! It is much harder (for me, anyway) to write a happy ending, and if I can't write it well, then I definitely don't want it as the end of my story. If hopeful endings are something that's important to us as writers, then we need to practice writing them artfully enough to use them.
DeleteYou're right, Elizabeth. Some of us are inclined to favor the dramatic and destitute. Stories with extremes draw us in because they impact us, give us something in a perspective we haven't yet tasted. I realized recently that a few of my favorite stories involve a dieing dog at the end - Where the Red Fern Grows, My Dog Skip, Marley and Me. This was awful to come to term with! Why are we drawn to pain? Does every story need that element to succeed? I think we find honesty when a story tackles tough topics and themes. I think that a story the reader can relate to speaks truth.
ReplyDeleteWe should be able to produce truth in our writing. Unfortunately the concept of hope has been cartooned and too fruity for some seasoned taste. A writer must find their nitch with hope, how they they portray it in a way that another can relate with while still being honest. I would say that I am a hopeful person but as an author my characters do not arrive easily at hope's door without hardship, just as I have not arrived at hope's door without hardship.
Wow! I really want to read Murakami now! I think this really ties in with what Lief Enger was talking about: not just showing realism in the depressing and painful, but also in the pure and delightful. I appreciate that you said we write for our characters because we "want to be easy" on them, because even though I'm writing a memoir, I can see where I'm trying to be easy on those characters as well.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if it would be good for you to look at The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom. Obviously, it's not fiction, but I always felt that when I read it, I was being fed joy and hope in the midst of destruction and doom. It would be an interesting study from a literary standpoint to try to figure out how she does that.
Elizabeth, thank you for this very honest post. It's given me hope as well. :)
ReplyDeleteYes! I'm not the only one with these thoughts (and I love all of the ones posted above)! I was thinking about this a lot as well, and I wonder why people only write depressing things. And I agree that it's a lot easier to leave characters in the valley into which they fall, but I think too it has to do a lot with the prominent worldview right now that people are without hope. I think it would be refreshing to read things that don't end dismally.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I was thinking about in this regard was that people write about pain--and staying in a state of pain--so often because it is something to which every (normal) human being can relate. I can't relate to mothers, since I don't have children. But I can relate to those who have lost a pet, a close friend, or family members. We've all been hurt by another person at one time or another, but not everyone can say that the hurt has been completely forgiven. I think it's very difficult to leave a character almost balancing on the edge of the valley, so to speak. They're not quite out of it, but tottering on a ledge of some sort (which doesn't have to be the ledge that pulls them out of the valley entirely). But to leave a character like that, dangling, is almost obnoxious to a writer who wants some sort of closure. Personally, I know that I just need to be okay with leaving a story in a state of precarious balance; we generally tip one way or the other. One is depressing, and the other is too perfect and happy. Tough thoughts and execution.
That's a beautiful quote: a sky roaring. How lovely. I love this question, and I think modern writing (and most everything coming out of the Dada art movement) seems to place an emphasis on the negative. But the positive is just as real in life. I so appreciate modern poetry and story that holds positive things in the same light as real, negative things. Both have shades of beauty and both are what add shape and contour to the world and living.
ReplyDeleteI want to read this story now - sounds like a very insightful quote.
Hey Elizabeth, I thought you had some really thought-provoking questions at the end. To answer, I do believe in happy endings... totally resonate with what you said. I think that we, as Christians, can absolutely be hopeful and optimistic. We have Christ in us! And no matter how difficult the circumstances, there is always hope.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the reason stories are often bleak and penetrating is because they are written in medias res. Oftentimes things do look hopeless in the middle of it, and authors sometimes like to process those difficult/depressing/realistic times in their lives. And it's interesting to read! But all in all, totally with you on the happy endings. Everyone loves a movie to end beautifully, if it can, especially a romantic movie. I think the same can go with stories (at least for me!).
Hmmm this is a great question. In my opinion, despair is different than sorrow. Hopeless is not the same as devastated. i think there should be legitimately depressing stories, stories that portray not only beauty and love and beauty broken and love lost. Yet i never want stories to feel hopeless. Sorrow need not be suicidal. What this looks like practically is an even tougher question. As Christians, though, we ought to grieve well, not grieving like those who have no hope nor writing grievous things that lack any hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13).
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