Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Happy For Now? Happy Ever After? What do you think?


Happy For Now? Happy Ever After?

When you get to the end of a story, what is it you want to feel? For me, it’s optimism and happiness. I certainly dnlt want a Happy For Never which was the way a NYT Bestselling author left her readers a few years ago. To quite a firestorm, I might add. No, I don’t want to feel sad, or depressed, or unhappy or any of those things. I read to escape. I read to live out my fantasies. I read to get away from the things that plague is every day in real life.
So now we come to the debate between Happy Ever After and Happy For Now. Although I have written a couple of Happy For Now stories I have to say I am a truly addicted Happy Ever After person. Yup, that’s me. I want everyone to end up with each other and have a wonderful future.
I am so obsessed about this that I often read the last chapter of a book before I buy it, just in case. Because…what if I read the whole book, the hero/heroine get together and in the end they are separated? End up with someone else? Have a big fight and break up? I ask you, will that make you feel good?
Not me!
It’s one of my biggest complaints with television. Writers focus so much on conflict and they don’t seem to have enough imagination to find different ways to bring it in except to constantly break up the couples you’ve fallen in love with. Do I want that in the books I read?
Absolutely not.
Books are like comfort food to me. Since I constantly battle a weight problem I read instead of consuming a large bag of potato chips or two pounds of M&M chocolate covered peanuts. Therefore, I want stories that make me feel warm and happy inside. I want to laugh and cry with the hero and heroine and cheer them on in their struggles to find each other, But most of all, in the end, I want to be ecstatically happy that they overcame the Big Problems and ended up together. Forever.
I mostly don’t read erotic when I’m I the middle of a writing project because I don’t want the author’s voice to bleed over into mine. I save that for the in-between times when I can rest my brain. So I’ve found some authors who feed my habit and satisfy my craving. I read the last two chapters of Robyn Carr’s My Kind of Christmas at least two dozen times because it’s just…so…wonderful! It gave me that bubbly feeling inside.
And I knew they’d be together forever. Just like the h/h in nearly all the books I read. Happy For Now might work okay for some people, but I want that resounding conclusion. That guarantee that, despite everything, no matter what troubles confront them, my h/h will always be happy together. Forever.
I always say stick with what works for you and that’s what works for me. How about you? Leave me your opinions. I’d love to know what readers out there are thinking.

www.desireeholt.com
desiremeonly.com
@desireeholt

3 comments:

  1. Desiree, I'm glad you're not being influenced by all of us Egoyanesque folk! (Okay, I can't really claim that title. The majority of my stories end happily too.)

    But read the ending before the beginning? That I can't imagine doing. It would totally kill the joy of reading for me, to know how the story will end.

    I do love an author who can make me wonder just how the h/h could EVER have a happy ending - and then pull their relationship out of the fire, convincingly, at the very last minute. The worst aspect of hea for me is predictability.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think you're probably in the majority in preferring the HEA. But I do know a few people who think the most miserable books are oh so real and oh so angst-ridden and the only thing real to read. When I think of them and who they are, and how they stumble through life, it figures.

    ReplyDelete
  3. My life is way too fucking awesome. I want to read unhappy, sad, and depressing books to escape from all this bliss.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.