Heroes Not Winning in the End?

[Naomasa298]

It's not a question of sending a "message". It's how you want the readers to feel, having read the story.

A. Do you want them to think "Ok, everyone's dead, time to move on to the next thing".
B. Or do you want them to think "This story reveals something I didn't know before".
C. Or "I spent a lot of time reading this story, I wasted it".
D. Or "This story really made me think how I would act in the same situation".
E. Something else

Because how you end the story makes a big difference. Is there an emotional payoff? Or is the reader going to feel cheated? If the journey doesn't justify the end, they're going to feel that. And this gets built throughout the story. If you're building something that screams "The heroes are gonna find a way to save the world!", and then it doesn't, many people will feel cheated.

Unless you're subverting that ending, but subverting doesn't mean the obvious ending doesn't happen. It can mean, the obvious end DOES happen, but... Or it can mean it was obvious all along, but they didn't accept it, but I'd hate that unless I really disliked the characters. And a myriad of other options.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

He told Frank that, in a play, the audience is at some distance from the actor. But movies put the actor right into the viewer's face, and there's an intimacy that prohibits allowing the good guy to die.

That is interesting. Huh. New things to ponder. How do you suppose that might translate to adapting books for the movies, if it translates at all?

 

[Naomasa298]

In the play though, the human Audrey dies and Seymour feeds her to the plant. They did film that, but it seems test audiences didn't like it, so the ending was changed.

 

[sierraromeobravo]

I've always wanted to write a story as if you're starting at the beginning of the second book and everything that happened in the first book was devastating. A story where the hero is required to figure out how to survive in a world that knew he was supposed to save them but he couldn't. I think too often we depend on people always winning. Not all stories have good endings! Go for it!

 

[Homer Potvin]

In the play though, the human Audrey dies and Seymour feeds her to the plant. They did film that, but it seems test audiences didn't like it, so the ending was changed.

Oh, shit! That wouldn't have worked at all. I watched that movie so many times when I was a kid my dad tried hiding the VCR tape on my because he couldn't stand the music anymore. I could still probably belt out every line if I had to.

Now that I've necroed a thread--as possible as that is after less than a year--my two cents is that doomed stories are not noteworthy at all, as others have mentioned upthread. As for this part here:

I just wanted to know if its appealing to have NO solutions.

I would invert that and ask if there's no solutions, then where is the conflict? Conflict be definition implies a range of choices and a possibility of outcomes. It's one thing to have a story where the heroes don't win, but if there's never a possibility and the characters are aware from the beginning, what's the point of the story? Maybe I'm not fully understanding the premise.

 

[Luxuria]

would invert that and ask if there's no solutions, then where is the conflict? Conflict be definition implies a range of choices and a possibility of outcomes. It's one thing to have a story where the heroes don't win, but if there's never a possibility and the characters are aware from the beginning, what's the point of the story? Maybe I'm not fully understanding the premise.

I understand that. I think here, the question is what do you do if you don't have choices? Which might be actually more character-driven, than plot driven. And the thing is, the characters are not aware there is no solution. Not yet. As for what the point of the story is, I am not sure. Not yet. But maybe it's about learning to accept fate.

 

[Schism]

it's about learning to accept fate.

A bitter pill we all must swallow.

 

[Louanne Learning]

But maybe it's about learning to accept fate.

Which is a significant lesson in itself