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If you were around in the '50s you'll remember that TV was filled with westerns. (Rawhide, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Have Gun will Travel, The Rifleman, etc.) And they all perpetuated the the western myth of the good guys winning and justice prevailed. In other words, they all had a satisfying and happy ending.
I just finished my 2nd viewing of all seasons of "The Wire." This was a program that broke, or flouted, all the known rules of fiction. At the finish of every episode, every season including the last one, there was no happy ending. But it was a gritty view into real life. In the final scenes the bad guys were back to business as usual, and the good guys were still frustrated. I loved it!
Unfortunately, authors don't have that option. All fiction, regardless of genre, must have a happy ending. The good guys must prevail and the bad guys go to jail and justice will be served. I learned that the hard way.
When I began to write seriously, devoting all my working time to it, I wanted my fiction to reflect real life. My first successful novel was "Tropical Knights" and it had a realistic ending, but not a totally happy one. There was still the hero longing for his lost love. Oh, the book was a success in that it had lots of readers, but it also had a lot of one star reviews and ALL of them complained about the "missing woman." (The hero found her in the next book.)
So, what do we do? We have choices in everything in life. We can (as I have done) write books with happy endings. Or we can be true to ourselves and write books that reflect real life. The public has been propagandized by the myth of all those old westerns. The good guys win, justice is done. The choice is yous as you unfold that next novel of yours.
Until next week - Good luck and keep writing.
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