Happy Endings...Not So Happy?

Have you ever read a book that ended TOO happily?

Too many characters survived? Too many relationships ended in hugs and handshakes? Too many catastrophes were easily averted?

I recently finished reading a book whose final five pages neatly did the following:

• Resolved the love triangle as the protagonist chooses between the two men she's been flip-flopping between for the last three books. The one she doesn't choose is fine with it, just like that.
• The guy she doesn't choose is immediately asked out on a date by a secondary character. The implication is that they'll live happily ever after.
• Four or five characters show up randomly (truly, out of nowhere) like "Hey, we're alive!" Despite the fact that there were numerous overwhelming obstacles in their way. This is not really explained.
• The warring parties (think hundreds, thousands of people) are gonna be just hunky-dory. Forget the angst of the past. Let's sing "Kumbaya" and roast marshmallows everybody.

I couldn't handle it. It was such a neat little ribbon, so condensed and sudden, that I simply could not suspend my disbelief. Maybe if these events had happened earlier, sort of scattered throughout. But no. The last five pages.

It's just unrealistic. I'm all for the hero winning at the end, but there needs to be balance in the force (as it were). This book was part of a trilogy that spent three books building up these insurmountable odds. The payoff of a five page, happy-go-lucky wrap up was so unfulfilling.


When you write, you are making promises to your reader all through your work. When you introduce your protagonist to the drop-dead gorgeous boy, you're promising that something is going to happen there. It doesn't have to be a GOOD thing! She could find out he's a total jerk or that he's an alien or that he's a figment of her imagination, but the promise is made that drop-dead gorgeous is going to play a role. When you set up cataclysmic events to thwart your hero, you're promising that IF your hero is going to win, it's going to be in an even more epic way, not by some simple shoulder shrug.

It's all about keeping your promises.

I know I struggle with endings in my own writing. I tend to stop too early and leave readers feeling unfulfilled (sorry!) so I almost always have to go back to my endings and take my time with them.

What books have you read that made good on their promises? What books had superb endings that are worth waiting for (without giving them away, of course)? Any advice for writing awesome endings?

Quick Tip: Editing #1: Text-to-Voice

Have a text-to-voice program read your work aloud to you. You'll catch things you missed the first time through, or even reading aloud on your own (which is also recommended). The voice will sound strange and electronic at first, but I promise that as you listen, it becomes far less noticeable. Or maybe the machines are learning...

Personally, as an added bonus, I am able listen to my work while I'm AT work this way. I don't do any serious editing there of course, but it helps me stay connected with my story and listen for plot holes along the way. It's also useful as I occasionally hear events that I foreshadowed early on in the book but never actually wrote in later.