The No News is No News Purgatory Thread, Volume 8

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kellion92

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I like the right ending, which isn't always happy. Sometimes, though, I'm specifically looking for a happy ending, so if the book doesn't deliver it, it's a matter of expectations. I don't expect happy-happy from literary fic, contemporary fiction, literary historical, or a book in the middle of a trilogy, for example. I do expect it from a fairy tale or MG (although even extremely literary, depressing MG often resolves itself in bows that are sometimes too pretty and uplifting).
 

raburrell

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{{Dys}}

I have to admit, I cannot stand sad endings. There are enough of them in real life for me. I don't need everything fluffy romance with unicorns and rainbows, but... yeah.

eta: ^ part of that is over-exposure to the gloom and doom male-domineered world of public high school reading lists.
 

xiaotien

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oh, i know why you said it.
you hardly want to give a bad example!
and i agree with you. we named many
books that are classics AND best sellers!
 

Elisabetta

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So I suspect I'm about to have a (hopefully) polite dust-up with my publisher about the novel I just subbed to him. Primarily, the problem is about happy endings. My book has a not entirely happy ending. Some of it is happy, but one particular part of it is really sad.

I'm curious about where Purgs stand on this matter. So... Purgy Poll?

How do you feel about books with sad endings? What's your favorite sad ending book? Can you help me come up with some very successful books that had sad ending? Other thoughts?

Historical fiction often has sad endings because those darn real historical personages insist on dying, killing each other, or getting beheaded. Personally I like bittersweet endings like JANE EYRE or REBECCA, in which characters are blinded/maimed/lose everything/have their houses burned down, but still have each other.

Just don't ever kill the animal. Yes, I know OLD YELLER and more recently MARLEY AND ME (whited out so as not to spoil anybody who hasn't read/seen the thing) kill off the dogs and were/are big successes, but I absolutely won't read them for just that reason. A Purgy who shall remain nameless recently had to cope with my unreasonable refusal to continue reading after the killing of a beloved dog.
 

Red-Green

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Darn that real life!! And that's exactly my problem. The rest of the book is as utterly butt-hurt reality as you can get, so it seems ill-advised to try to make the ending less real. I just wanted to go in with a list of books that prove my point. Certain people like sad endings. Readers do not universally buy books for a ray of sunshine...
 

sunna

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Oh, I forgot one: Kingsolver's Animal Dreams. It [mild spoilers]skips forward a few years in the very last chapter so you're not left with quite the same sadness as the penultimate chapter, but the plot arc definitely ends on a truly sad (and beautiful) note.


...Which reminds me, I have Flight Behavior to read this week. ~*happy*~
 

Cake

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Red - I think sad endings are fine as long as it fits the novel. It will probably ring false if the tone suddenly changes to them dancing off into the sunset wearing aviators (even fictional characters have to protect their eyes).

I just finished (big fat spoiler) The Book Thief where everyone dies and it's sad but they had to die for the narrator to know the story. And it wasn't entirely depressing so there was still little bits of happiness coming through.

Pretty much anything by Thomas Hardy has a sad ending, but the books are like that the whole way through and you know the whole thing is building to doom.
 

Amarie

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As a followup to all my posts yesterday, here's info for everybody not self-publishing on getting your ebooks up on various Amazon UK/Europe sites if they aren't there.I've asked both my agent and K. Rusch about this (who doesn't know me from anywhere, but who responded to my email in a couple of hours), and the following is based on their replies:

If your publisher kept world English rights, you can ask them or have your agent ask them to allow the e-editions to be released in those territories. Some territories may have gotten overlooked, especially for books published in 2011 or earlier, before Amazon was up and running in various European countries and before ebooks were making an impact.

If you kept world English rights, or rights to specific countries, you may be able to distribute the books yourself or sell it to a UK distributor, but there will probably be some licensing requirement with your original publisher, which would be in your contract.
Many agents haven't thought to pursue this, so it's one of those cases where you may have to take the initiative if you want something done.

How do you feel about books with sad endings? What's your favorite sad ending book? Can you help me come up with some very successful books that had sad ending? Other thoughts?

I don't like books with sad endings because at my age, if I measured all the tears I've shed in my life, I don't need to add one more to that ocean over a book. That's just me though.

That said, I did read The Invisible Bridge because my husband gave it to me as a present. It's a World War II book, so it naturally had some sad parts to the ending. It did well-An Amazon Best Books of the Month and I think it was an Oprah book choice too, probably other awards.
 

firedrake

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I don't have a problem with sad endings either and as Elisabetta pointed out, it happens a fair bit with historicals.

My favourite would be 'We Speak No Treason', which I mentioned the other night. About Richard the III, told from the POVs of a maiden, court jester, archer and nun. Also 'Crown in Candlelight' by the same author - Rosemary Hawley Jarman.
 

mayqueen

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How do you feel about books with sad endings? What's your favorite sad ending book? Can you help me come up with some very successful books that had sad ending? Other thoughts?

Historical fiction often has sad endings because those darn real historical personages insist on dying, killing each other, or getting beheaded. Personally I like bittersweet endings like JANE EYRE or REBECCA, in which characters are blinded/maimed/lose everything/have their houses burned down, but still have each other.
I'm a sucker for a well-done sad ending. I hate "twist" sad endings, like the author is trying to prove he or she is such a Serious Writer by giving a surprise shit ending. But a sad ending in line with the tone of the book will always get me. I primarily read and write HF. I find that real life rarely has positive endings for most things, so I will say that I like sad endings with guarded hope, if that makes sense. I find them very cathartic because sometimes crying over a good sad story feels better than crying over a shitty lecture I just gave or a form rejection.
 

Dragonstar

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If it fits the story, then sad endings work. I write happy ones though.

My favorite sad ending? Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card.
 

CalebJMalcom

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happy birthday blue and dragon....

I am very fond of the no ending ... Not sure if it is happy or sad and things are kindajust there ... Though I have been told that my favorite movies are both happy and sad at the sametime
 

Red-Green

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happy birthday blue and dragon....

I am very fond of the no ending ... Not sure if it is happy or sad and things are kindajust there ... Though I have been told that my favorite movies are both happy and sad at the sametime

I would say my book is simultaneously happy and sad. There are happy things, but there are decidedly sad things, too.
 

JoNightshade

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Darn that real life!! And that's exactly my problem. The rest of the book is as utterly butt-hurt reality as you can get, so it seems ill-advised to try to make the ending less real. I just wanted to go in with a list of books that prove my point. Certain people like sad endings. Readers do not universally buy books for a ray of sunshine...

Like others have said, if it fits the book it fits. And if the rest of the book is very realistic, I would be loathe to tie everything up neatly.

Me, I think I prefer mixed endings. Some happy, some sad. Mainly because in real life that's often what we get, too. I find all-tragedy and all-happy to be equally unrealistic. :)

My favorite sad ending? Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card.

This is one of his best works, but do not read this book if you have children. For reals. There are sad books, and then there are books that just destroy you because you know there's no way the man could have written it without experiencing the death of his own child. Which he did. (Fortunately I read this one before I had kids! Will never touch it again.)
 

lwalker

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I have nothing to add, but wanted to say hi.

So, hi!

Bday dinner for oldest kiddo tonight. Hubs has a trip this week and will be gone on her birthday. Watching people post pinterest boards about Nichelle is so much fun!

Oh! I do have one thing! I got my first "fan mail" today! From a woman I've never heard of, who took the time to send a note saying she loved FPF and can't wait for the next book, and posted a nice review and will tell all her friends they need to read it.

I haz a warm fuzzy.

I've gotten several PMs and reps from people saying how lovely it is that my launch has gone so well, and can I just say: part of why it's been so lovely for me is that you all had given me very realistic (read: not high) expectations. I really got up last Tuesday thinking "If two people I've never met buy it and enjoy it, I'll be thrilled." So all the lists and reviews and such completely blew me away. It's been like living in a dream. But if I'd gotten up Tuesday expecting roses and raves and the NYT, well ... it would have been a whole other sort of week. :)

So thanks, y'all.
 

mikeland

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One more entry for the sad endings conversation. John Irving. A Prayer for Owen Meany is particularly sad yet uplifting at the same time. Oh, and Kazuo Ishiguro. Both Remains of the Day and Never Let You Go have bittersweet endings.

But I agree that a book with a sad ending has to really earn it. I'm far more likely to be angry at a contrived sad ending than a manufactured happy one. I have higher standards for a punch in the gut than a kiss on the cheek. OK, that sounds a bit odd ....
 

Red-Green

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I have higher standards for a punch in the gut than a kiss on the cheek. OK, that sounds a bit odd ....


But it's true! You don't really have to earn a happy ending in the way you have to earn a sad ending. If you're going to break your readers' hearts over something, you pretty much have to get their permission.
 

sunna

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All I thought about the whole drive home was my favorite sad-ending books. :rolleyes:

Connie Willis' Passage, Lincoln's Dreams, and the aptly named Doomsday Book were all very sad. And Guy Gavriel Kay's Lions of Al Rassan was definitely on the bittersweet end of things.


..Shutting up now. :)
 
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