Writers Be Wary, We Love Misery and Happiness Doesn’t Sell
By: Robert Turner
Tags: Character, Writing Tips, Plot, Lighterside, Writing

Writers Be Wary, We Love Misery and Happiness Doesn’t Sell

Why your happy ending or character might not sell your book

Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash

As writers, we need to be aware of this fact when we are creating fiction. I was reminded of it recently when submitting the third chapter of a novel to a genre-specific literary group for commentary. It came back with a resounding no. Here are the reasons they provided, pretty much verbatim, that my bruised ego had to contend with.

The chapter is not in keeping with the style of the first two you submitted (Yes, I knew this and it had been intentional, I was introducing a new character)

Your character and his environment are too happy and do not appear realistic to the reader.

The content is in keeping with the initial chapters (score one for the home team)

So there it was. My efforts to inject a little joy into the world were all for nought. I had lost sight of the real world and started writing fairy stories. I was annoyed with myself. I knew this and should have known better.

It set me to thinking about this unspoken rule of realistic fiction writing and storytelling. I mention realistic because the rule doesn’t apply to stories aimed at children or family- novels. Fairy stories and books aimed at a younger reader are allowed to dip into the ‘happy world’. In fact, it’s encouraged.

The exact opposite is true of children. Their carefree, optimistic, happy outlook colors their view of the world and they still see fluffy blue clouds and furry pink bunnies everywhere. As parents, we encourage this and choose books that reflect this made- world. Happy stories, happy characters, and happy endings.

Adults don’t share this view. They see the world differently, as a place of heartache, misery and unhappiness, where the characters are engaged in a constant battle to survive. Feed your audience a plot and characters that lack these components and they will reject the fairy tale. It’s not reflective of the world they know and believe to be true.

So what is the psychology that drives this morbid outlook and how as writers can we exploit it to create believable fiction? More importantly, where is the happy line and when do you know you’ve crossed it?

“what’s left for writers is to depict the negative, the darkness, the bleakest possibilities”.

This quote is from author Ben Marcus, and he bases it on Kafka’s dictum — The positive is given. We are born into misery. The expectation of happiness is not a given and needs to be achieved, if only temporarily, for fleeting moments, by acts of suffering and sacrifice.

This dismal view of the world is a common theme espoused by many psychologists, Jordan Peterson a noticeable example. The link will take you to his. video lecture on the subject if you’re not already too depressed. It is an oversimplification of a complex issue because we’re dealing with the human psyche. It is a generalization that you need to pay attention to as a writer though, because that’s what generalizations are. They exist because they are reflective of the larger part of a group.

Sure, there are outliers. People who don’t ascribe to this philosophy and look for positives and happiness everywhere they go, but they don’t matter to you. Not if you’re in the business of making money from your writing. It’s the masses you need buying your books. If money is not a motivating factor then by all means pen novels for the outliers.

Believable stories are driven by plot and character and it’s your characters, above all else that need to conform to this view of the world. Your readers want to see themselves reflected in your flawed creations. Creations that endure suffering and heartache. Real pain. Only then, once the reality has been established can you allow your character glimpses of happiness and success.

Create a happy character with a great life and you evoke jealousy and dislike along with disbelief in the reader. You highlight their own misery in the most painful way possible and loose any hope of the essential bonding process with your character.

So how much happiness and how much success? Where do you draw the line. I think that is largely determined by your plot and characters. There is no hard and fast rule for this, no 80/20 coefficient that you can apply. It’s different for each situation. You could argue it’s just like life. You never know what’s going to happen next and that’s where your magic comes in.

Misery wasn’t always the flavor of the day. Charles Dickens and Jane Austin’s novels attest to this. How they would fair on today’s best seller lists is open to debate. Our modern reader is the product of a far more complex world than the one encountered by Dickens and Austin’s public. Stephen King is a master at the art of exploiting the modern day readers desire for this darker side of life. Take the last chapter in his final book of the Dark Tower fantasy series. The hero, Rowland, finally reaches his goal, the room at the top of the tower.

His discovery brings home with painful clarity the futility of all his many sacrifices. All the suffering, all in vain. It’s is a heart wrenching end to a long and arduous journey and the moment is bereft of any happiness. Fate it would seem, has screwed Rowland of Gilead. There’s a feeling we can all identify with. A feeling we should strive to replicate in our writing.

Now you might not like King or be a fan of the genre. That’s not really the point. It’s his book sales that are at issue and all across the world millions have endorsed him, millions have bought into the reality he has created. Why? Simply because they found it believable, they identified with it and the misery and suffering reminded them of someone they know. Intimately.

Happy writing, just not too happy.