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< The Common Room ~ Confessions of an Angst Whore... |
| snarkypants |
 Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 9:13 pm |
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Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Posts: 14
Location: Texas, USA
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I like a good bit of angst in a story, but I don't think that a "happy" ending has to be one with the requisite wedding and babies.
That said, I'm one of the ones who's been begging June for a happy ending to BYA. Not because that's all I like to read. Rather, because the story is so long, and so involving, and the characters so sympathetic, that I want them to find happiness when it is resolved. When writing is good, you identify with the characters, and you want things to end up for them in the way you'd want them to end up for you. But I also trust that June will end the story in a 'true' fashion, and even if it ends unhappily, it will be a satisfying ending.
I, personally, loved the end of "Therapy," because it was true to the character. The sequel was also very good; icing on the cake, as it were (but of the two, I prefer "Therapy"). I love a bittersweet ending to a story, if it makes sense. Rhett has to leave Scarlett, however much we might wish otherwise. Charlotte has to die, leaving Wilbur to raise her children. The Velveteen Rabbit has to become Real.
I recommended "Saving Private Ryan" to a friend, who couldn't believe that I liked that movie when Tom Hanks died at the end (should I have put up a spoiler warning here?). But, I said, he has to die at the end. Because that makes Ryan's survival all the sweeter and more poignant. If Hanks and Damon had slapped each other on the shoulders and walked off into the sunset, the ending wouldn't have had the emotional punch it did. I still well up with tears as Damon's face morphs into the elderly man standing in the graveyard, as he asks his wife if he is a good man.
I've had people ask me for sequels, particularly of my "fluffiest" story to date, "Against the Wall." (Fluffy, in that it ends with a baby.) But I really have nothing more to say about that universe. I might revisit it in a different context (for a ready-established framework of relationships), but I'm not going to add a PWP sequel merely for the sake of doing so. There has to be a story involved, which totally negates the "WP" in PWP. |
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| skybyrd |
| Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 9:49 pm |
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Joined: 14 Apr 2005
Posts: 13
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azazello wrote: The point I was trying to make was that I read fics that start off promisingly dark. Then mid point the author seems to decide quite outwith the tone of fic and plot that there must be a happy ending. It's not good writing. Those endings do not match and look glued on.
I'm actually at the other end of the spectrum, I started a fic with the intention of a fluffy happy ending, and mid-point Severus and Hermione looked at me and said, "WTF?" And now I can only see 2 or three chapters before ending, and it won't end with a happy snog or a declaration of love.
So... it's good that it didn't get validated on Ashwinder (bad hs english teachers and haven't been to college so grammar is a weakness), as I'm no longer sure it fits the SS/HG category. At best, it could be called "pre-relationship." I'm going to finish it, because I've never finished a multi-chaptered fic, but its not a romance anymore. |
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| anna_kat |
| Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2005 1:18 pm |
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Joined: 01 Jan 2005
Posts: 33
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snarkypants wrote: That said, I'm one of the ones who's been begging June for a happy ending to BYA. Not because that's all I like to read. Rather, because the story is so long, and so involving, and the characters so sympathetic, that I want them to find happiness when it is resolved. When writing is good, you identify with the characters, and you want things to end up for them in the way you'd want them to end up for you.
I agree wholeheartedly. But to me, BYA is not angst, it's drama. |
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