Sunday, May 20, 2012

Happily Ever Afters?


So I’m nearing the end of my WIP, Belle and the Beast. I was pretty sure I had the ending worked out where the Beast was transformed back into a man after being shot by an angry mob. He and Belle were going to move to Philadelphia to work as abolitionists while the Beast’s former slaves were set free.
Perhaps it had a little bit of a Disney-type happily ever after, but I was nonetheless pleased with it.  
Pinned Image

Then I went on my walk. As I was listening to the soundtrack to Disney's Beauty and the Beast, I was thinking again about my own ending to this "tale as old as time." It hit me that my ending might just be too perfect. All of the good-guys get to live happily ever after. The Beast is transformed, Belle gets to go back up North, and some slaves get a shot at freedom. What's not to love, right?

I am beginning to think that my ending is too perfect. It's too much like a children's cartoon, and the thought is scaring me.

I don't want to kill anyone off.

I love a lot of my characters and don't want them to die. I have Walter, Phoebe, and Mariah, a slave family who was once owned by the Beast. I don't want to break the family apart by killing off Walter or Phoebe as I can't bring myself to kill off a little girl.

Then I thought about killing off another slave, but I just can't bring myself to do it.

Alot of Young Adult Fiction seems to have Happily Ever Afters. The books that I've read that aren't a part of a trilogy usually have everyone living and fulfilling their dreams.

So what do you think I should do and what do you think of Happily Ever Afters?

 

3 comments:

  1. I'm definitely a Happily-Ever-After fan. I write Horror, and I think the main reason I do is to show evil being defeated and good winning at the end. I wish reality were so easy to manipulate...
    (Thanks for your follow.)

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  2. Because of the genre you're using, I don't think your Happily Ever After is a bad thing. Provided you have a strong story overall, and nothing's tidied up in a neat, hand-wave-y kind of way in the end, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

    I write horror as well, and while I sometimes have unhappy endings (more often for short stories, for some reason), most of the time I try to make things work out. The most important thing is to make the ending fit with the rest of the story.

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  3. Hmm, this is tricky! If you love your ending then leave it as it is, no one is going to complain of a happy ending in the end if there is enough trouble in the rest of the book.

    If however you really do feel that you need to make it less happy then I think you should take 'kill your darlings' literally! We writers all love our characters (& we should, otherwise why should readers love them?) but in the end the most important thing is the story, and if killing a beloved character helps the story than sometimes that is the painful but right thing to do.

    But as I said, it depends if you like your ending. If you like it, keep it!

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