Sometimes the Boy Shouldn't Get the Girl

I recently read a series (that shall remain nameless) where the love interest died at the end. It kind of came out of nowhere, no foreshadowing, no build up, no big romantic sacrificing moment, just a sudden, tragic death. And even though I really liked the character, I had no emotional response to his death. It just fell flat. I couldn’t figure out why the author killed a main character like that.

 So I went to her website and read through the frequently asked questions, and I wasn’t alone. One of the first questions was why did that character die? Her answer was because he was just a causality of war. In real life, sometimes people just die without any reason, and that was how she wanted his death to be.

While I respect her decision as a writer and staying true to her vision, I think stories need a stronger sense of purpose than what we find in real life. Random things happen in real life, but not in stories. Everything needs to makes sense, everything needs to relate in to the main plot, everything that happens needs a reason. If you are going to deny the reader a happily ever after, it needs to fit the story and the theme. It really needs to be the point of the story.

 There are a number of love stories that I love that do not have a happy ending. In fact, when these types of stories strike an emotional chord with me, they stay with me forever. Stories with tragic or unhappy endings can be very powerful, but they need to be done right. Here are a few of my favorites, and why I think these endings are absolutely perfect.

1. Gone with the Wind. Okay, I love Scarlett O’Hara. I think she is one of the greatest characters of all time. But her endless selfishness, inability to give up on what she couldn’t have (until she could have it), and her pride destroy any chance she had of true happiness. Rhett clearly loved her and did everything he could to win her over, but in the end, he had too much self-respect to put up with her any longer. I like the open ending (I will never read Scarlett, blasphemy). Maybe Scarlett would change and win Rhett back or maybe not. But at the end of Gone with the Wind, Scarlett hadn’t earned her happily ever after.


2. Titanic. To me, Titanic really wasn’t a love story. It was about Rose finding the courage to break away from a life that was controlling her. Jack inspired that change, and in that way he saved her, but it was Rose who made the choice to leave everything she knew behind and start a new life. Although the romantic in me would have loved to see those two go off in the sunset together, the story was stronger having Rose go off on her own. It showed her transformation. That she became brave enough to start a new life on her own, without anyone to help her. She built a rich life for herself, became an actress, flew an airplane, got married and had children, but through it all, she always kept Jack in her heart.


3. City of Angels. This ending was very tragic. Seth gives up being an angel for Maggie only to lose her after one day together. I heard that a lot of people didn’t like this ending, but I thought it was perfect. Seth chose to human, and the good comes with the bad. Love comes with loss, happiness comes with sorrow, pleasure comes with pain. Both the good and the bad experiences are what makes being human so wonderful. Even though Seth only got one day with Maggie, to him it was worth the “fall.” Loving her was worth the pain of losing her.

4. Casablanca. I think real love is about selflessness. It’s about sacrificing that one thing that you want the most for someone else. In Casablanca, the thing Rick wants most in the world is Ilsa, and Ilsa clearly loves him too. But keeping her in Nazi controlled Casablanca and away from her revolutionary husband who needs her isn’t what is best for her. Rick can see that even if Ilsa can’t, so he gives up what he wants most and convinces her go. It’s incredibly romantic even if it isn’t a happily ever after ending.




5. Wuthering Heights. Some people think Wuthering Heights is a great love story and others call it a hate story, and I think they are both right. Love and hate are closely related. Both are very passionate and consuming emotions. I think in their own selfish way, Cathy and Heathcliff really did love each other. But it was a selfish, obsessive, all-consuming love that destroyed them and everyone around them. Wuthering Heights is a fascinating story of the darker, destructive side of love, and if Heathcliff and Cathy ended up with a happily ever after, it would have romanticized that type of love instead of showing how truly devastating it can be.

Of course all of these stories, except City of Angels, are classics.  To me they are perfect from start to finish, and their endings are emotional and connected to the major themes and stayed with me long after the story is over.  This level of storytelling is hard to achieve.

Honestly, I struggle with endings. To me, they can make or break a book. Happy endings are usually the safer way to go, because most of the time, readers want happily ever after. So if a story is going to end in heartache, there needs to be a good reason for it, or it will fall flat.

 So what are your favorite unhappy endings?

 ~MaryAnn

Romantic Subplots, Part 1

“And now I’m looking at you,” he said, “and you’re asking me if I still want you, as if I could stop loving you.  As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything else ever has." (Jace Wayland; The City of Glass by Cassandra Clare)

This topic has been on my mind for a long time. Thankfully, I started writing this post early in the week. I kept writing...and writing...and writing...and realized that I've got a lot more to say than I can possibly fit into one post. So let's just call this Part One in a series of five (?). 

We could call it Subplot Saturday. Or Saturday Smoochies. Or even Saturday Steaminess... 

Yeah. So I'll keep working on that.

I'm going to share one rule a week with you for the next five weeks. Five weeks may seem like an unbearably long time to wait. But never fear. By the end, you'll be able to write a love story that people will tumbl about for years.
*(http://enchantedmusic.tumblr.com/)
Caution: Music will start if you click on this link!!!

What is your idea of the perfect love story?

I suppose the answer to that question is different for everyone. Personally, I don't like the love story to be the key element of the plot. But although I want the love story to take a back seat to the action, make no mistake: I read books for the romance. And I'm not alone.

Take the bestselling series The Hunger Games as an example. Katniss's fight to protect her family and keep herself alive should have completely overshadowed  the love triangle between Katniss, Gayle and Peeta. But in the days before Mockingjay came out, what was everyone talking about?

Rule #1:  An exciting story should drive your plot, not the romance

“Really? Are you going to ask him to be your partner?" Isabelle asked. "It's like a cotillion, this partner's business, except with killing." 

"So, exactly like a cotillion," said Simon. (From The City of Glass, by Cassandra Clare)

  

I'll read hundreds of pages for one paragraph that makes my heart flutter. In fact, I submit that the hundreds of pages are a necessary component. This isn't the "Wow, you're hot. All we need is a good excuse to make out," romance. The kind of love story I'm talking about is the one that says, "I know everything about you--your strengths, your weaknesses. We're already an amazing team, and I want it to last forever. And by the way, you ARE hot, and I've been waiting way too long for a good excuse to make out."

My first attempt to tell a story like that was a bit of a failure. That's because I got so caught up in the whole love story that I let it take over. It's a perfectly valid basis for a book, and it was a lot of fun to write, but it's really not what I was going for. What I want is a story that would be worthwhile and fun even without a hint of romance. The romance is the icing on the cake.

If I was a math geek like Maryann, this is the place where I would build a really scientific looking graph showing the fragile relationship between the exciting story going on in your character's lives and their emerging feelings for each other. In the beginning, the driving action has nothing to do with the romance. As with every other sub-plot, the goal is to lay the foundation, so that the reader is not pulled out of the story when things start heating up. As the book progresses, the ratio between action and romance will start to shift, but the action still propels the plot. If anything, the romance complicates it.

When you've stretched out the getting to know you phase as long as you can, and its  finally time to get to the romance, there's nothing like a little adrenaline to make a romantic scene shine. Don't believe me? Watch this:

                             

Of course, your characters don't have to be in a battle to the death when they declare their undying allegiance. They can wait until after, if you want.

*This is my daughter's tumblr. Although she doesn't tumbl about one specific love story, she follows several people who do. My favorite is odair-in-the-underwear.