The ending i can't stand (And my personal guidlines for stories) · 7:53am Sep 11th, 2012
Commonly known as the sad ending. Basically I hate it whenever a story ends on a bad note. Even if its a case of "Somepony sacrificed themself to save Equestria" then I'm okay with that. That is not the sad ending, that is the ultimate sacrifice ending, which is more a half-happy, half-sad ending, since the hero of the story dies, but does so in order to let the story have a happy ending.
My favourite type of ending (The one I attempt to do at the end of each of my stories) is the redemption ending. The redemption ending is basically the ending of Star Wars. Its where a villain character teams up, or aids the main character in defeating the overarching villain (It is possible for the overarching villain to redeem themselves, but generally this dosen't seem as good to me). I really love this kind of thing, when a villain becomes a hero (And I'm quite fond of heroes becoming villains as well), but only as long as the ending isn't a sad one.
The sad ending is basically game over. When everything is lost, and there is no hope that things will ever be happy again. Though this is a more realistic ending, it's also the one i hate the most. I do not read books for realism, I read them for pleasure, and even if the story drags me through hell to reach that happy ending, i'll like it (Especially if It takes hell to get to that ending). But if it just ends on 'and then Celestia died.' I'm going to be feeling pretty miserable for days afterwards, along with whenever I think about it. My personal opinion why is because we expect to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Even though we can often feel like rubbish, people are overall pretty optimistic. Even though we might not think it's going to happen, deep down we always expect that things will turn out right, Thats why when we (I at least) reach a sad ending of a story, I hate it. Because there was no light at the end of the tunnel, and there isn't going to be one, just perpetual darkness and sadness.
Because of this I always write with a few personal rules in mind.
1. Whenever a character dies, always make sure there was a point to that death
This rule is pretty much sacred to me. Unless a character (in particular a main character) dies with good reason, I'm not going to like the death. When a character is suddenly killed by a beast, that death is a good death, but only if the beast is revealed and the remaining characters attempt to take revenge on the beast. Generally a cliched but good character death is when a character sacrifices themself so that the rest of the characters can get to safety. An example of a bad character death is when they're crossing a chasm and one of the characters slips and dies. The death is unexpected, so it's got a good chance of making the reader sad, but that's all. There are certain blind spots with this rule, but always try to make sure that your character dies for a good reason.
2. Make sure you have used everything you introduced into the story by the end of it
In short, tie up loose ends. If you've introduced a character that leaves the main group, make sure they come back at some point, or that they are heard of again (If you really want to get rid of them, make them die to the overarching villain, revenge becomes another motive for the main characters if you do this). You do not need for every character to appear later, just clear up any unusual facts about them. (Eg. Scar on the face, have it explained and possibly used as a plot device)
Anyway, those are just the two personal rules that I always abide by. They might help you, they might not, they might sound horribly cliche, but they tend to work for me.
