Unhappy Endings

I like to write.  But you probably figured that out long ago.  Anyway... I bring up my love of writing because it is something I have been able to do more of lately thanks to my more free schedule.  One of the things I have been working on though has me in a bit of a quandary.  I'm struggling because I know what the end of the story will be, and it's not pleasant.  I happen to like the ending, but knowing that most people like a happy ending, I find myself struggling to write the rest of the story because of how it will end.

Why is it that unhappy endings make us unhappy?  I have always wondered about this question.  I actually remember asking my parents when I was a kid why people don't like unhappy endings.  The answer from everyone always seems to be the same: people want to have a happy ending because they want to believe that happy endings exist.  My problem has always been one of reality.  The world around me does not show me that there is always a happy ending, that every person is going to change for the better, that every heartache will be healed by true love's kiss.  And while that dim reality may sound as though it is borne of my career choices, I can assure you it isn't.  I knew as a kid life didn't always have a happy ending.  And I was bothered by the insistence of those around me that happy endings must occur in a book, movie, or play.

I understand now the need for a happy ending as a method of coping with the reality around us.  But I continue to wonder where the balance lies between reality and fantasy where the fantasy is known to be false but is still indulged for the sake of coping.  In my writing, I often find myself straying from the happy ending.  The thing is, when people read my less than happy endings, they are disturbed by them and question me quite extensively about what is wrong.  My answer is always the same that nothing is wrong.  I am usually surprised by the question in the first place.  Apparently an unhappy ending to a story or a darkly written poem mean that something bad must be going on in the life of the writer.

I question this assumption.  Perhaps it is my latent pessimism speaking, but even when I am completely happy, I can write most darkly.  I like the macabre.  I have been drawn to the bad guys and the morose characters in movies.  My favorite character in the Lion King was Scar and my favorite character in the Harry Potter movies was Severus Snape if that tells you anything.  One of my favorite authors is Edgar Allan Poe.  But there is something most important that I feel I must point out here.  I am not drawn to the bad guy in real life.  I don't get all gaga over the bad boys, the trouble makers, the instigators.  So somewhere in there I must be like the people that want a happy ending.  I certainly know right from wrong and I try to stay away from the things that are bad for me.

And yet... I still grow tired of the fairy tale endings.  Perhaps because I have seen so many who one day thought they had found their fairy tale and the next discovered it wasn't true.  I know the end of the story.  Good prevails.  It's the in between where darkness weaves its way into our lives, and it is that reality that I find myself writing in the above mentioned work.  Maybe it's because when I write such darkness, it serves as a reminder that I am not immune to the pull of evil.  I must not allow it an inch for in so doing, I allow it a dangerous foothold.  So my writing, chilling though it may be, serves to me a valuable purpose.  The characters who convey such dread are for me the archetype of what any of us could become if we chose to open the door to hatred, cruelty, and vengeance.  So whether anyone else ever sees it or not, I think I will finish writing the work with which I am currently battling so as to remind myself not to be the villain.  Maybe unhappy endings need to exist if for no other reason than to remind us that fear and pain and sorrow do exist around us and we are not supposed to like them.