Gen, romance and a happy ending

[alias_sqbr]

I've recently been in the mood for romance novel and romance-novel-like stories, and have been pondering what exactly it is I've been seeking since some non-romantic stories hit the spot and many romantic ones don't. Reading fanfic has helped make this more obvious since you can so finely control exactly what kind of story you're looking for (to a point). EDIT: I read other types of stories too! Just sometimes I get a craving for a particular sort.

And I've decided that while some of it is that I'm just feeling soppy or whatever, what I'm really after is the characters going through a major positive change in themselves and their lives leading to a satisfying happily-ever-after ending(*).

It's much easier to do this with a romantic plot, they're disproportionately involving and there's this strong cultural belief that finding your true love=happy ever after. But most of Lois McMaster Bujold's stories hit the spot, as did the child-foils-alien-invasion plot of "The True Meaning of Smekday". (You'd think "defeating an alien invasion" would always count as a "major change" but many characters come out of it much the same as they went in)

Meanwhile established relationship or pornish one night stand etc stories do not since nothing significant changes.

And it's kind of annoying, because fic is divided into gen and shippy stories, and I find myself reading shippy fic because there's too much danger a gen fic will be some generic fit-in-between canon casefile type story and I won't feel that the characters have changed in any way. Original fiction is more likely to have a proper character arc, but is less likely to be as straightforwardly happy.

This ties into the fact I don't like episodic tv shows, and LOVE shows where characters grow and change and it all leads to a satisfying conclusion.

For example: I just finished watching "Avatar the Last Airbender". Before watching the show I kept hearing about the shipping wars and since I've been so focussed on romantic plots recently thought this would interest me. But the show makes it pretty clear when people are going to get together and there generally isn't much drama about it, and I found myself more involved in the struggles of the war and the changing platonic relationships (though I did get engaged with the romantic relationships too) One of the things I really liked was the way that they bothered to have complicated and intense relationships involving women that were neither romantic nor familial.

Anyway, I'm happy I came to this realisation since it'll make it easier to figure out what sort of stories to look for and also reassures me I haven't totally turned my back on my gen-reading ways. Not sure what I can do to find stories that do what I want without just reading more romance novels, though (and even some of them are more about the sexy than the emotional arc).

(*)I'm inclined to think that why I'm in the mood for this sort of story is that, well..life hasn't been full of positive change and satisfaction recently :/

Comments

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

I totally like big character growth stories. Not all of the ones I write have a happy ending, though. ;)

[alias_sqbr]

I like unhappy endings sometimes! Just not as much or as often as I like happy ones :)

It's funny, I wrote a bit in highschool then tapered off into my twenties and a large proportion of those stories ended badly. But everything I've written in the last few years has ended happily (or would have if I'd finished it)

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

I wrote a bit of meta a while back about how I really like the Huge Happy Ending, and have a couple of times gone through and written something wherein I pulled out all the stops to make that work.

Most of my stories recently have been about fighting through self-discovery concerning sexuality. Not really sure where that's coming from... but yeah, major positive change, maybe, though in some cases it's just major annoying change. ;)

[velithya]

I get sadface if I read fic and it ends unhappily. I am like, THIS IS NOT THE HAPPY ENDING I REQUESTED D:

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read A Suitable Boy, out of curiosity? A longie but a goodie.

[cupidsbow.livejournal.com]

I love friendship romances. They are actually my favourite genre, even above love-romances. That said, a lot of supposedly 'buddy' relationship stories don't do it for me, as I don't fall in enough like with the buddies. It's something to do with the focus of the story; it has to be about how the friendship changes their lives for the better, rather than the friendship arising from the life-changing event like an added bonus (which is what most buddy movies do -- can't have the characters too invested in each other, it wouldn't be manly).

My favourite fannish friendship romance writer is Sholio/friendshipper. She writes the most brain-meltingly good McKay/Sheppard. Especially the early ones, where she was still learning the characters. Mmmm. So good.

[erinptah]

This almost makes me want to write some incredibly epic gen.

I say "almost" because in practice I can never resist throwing the pairing in there. But now that I think about it, in a lot of the long stories I've written, even the primary romance is frequently a subplot, with the character growth and development being driven by some other factor. And I've actually gotten comment on how many stories I write (usually shorter ones, this time) where the people I would normally be shipping can't have a romantic relationship, and the plot moves around their closeness in other ways.

I still enjoy episodic TV shows, but any kind of story where everything falls together in a well-orchestrated grand happy conclusion...those are wonderful. Even (especially?) if they have to sink deep into crashing waves of conflict and despair to get there. (I do love my darkfic, but mostly the kind in which the angst is there to be fought through and triumphed over, rather than just existing for the sake of being angsty.)

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

any kind of story where everything falls together in a well-orchestrated grand happy conclusion...those are wonderful. Even (especially?) if they have to sink deep into crashing waves of conflict and despair to get there.

*nodds* There's something about the emotional catharsis that a well-done happy ending that satisfyingly resolves things offers when it comes after a bunch of angst and drama that 100% fluff fics and anything with an unhappy ending just can't offer.

Though unhappy endings can work if they're dramatic on the operatic scale and also offer resolution and emotional closure. But modern litary fiction of the sort that loves its unhappy endings is very anti-closure and anti-emotional-satisfaction. The classical idea of tragedy as something that's supposed to spark catharsis doesn't really apply to modern lit, I guess. (there's a reason I read almost solely genre fiction and YA, and while a large part of that is that I'm not interested in middle class and upper-middle class white people having midlift crises and getting divorced, which seems to be about 50% of all mainstream fiction that's not about middle-aged women's relationships with their mothers, the rest is that mystery novels and romances always have satisfying endings and SF tends to at least offer interesting world-building to compensate for the storyline if the author's going for the depressing anti-climax ending).

edited for typoes

[alias_sqbr]

I don't mind if I can see it coming, but if I'm not ready for it an unhappy ending in a story totally breaks me, and there is that added expectation with fanfic that it will have a happy ending. So yes.

[alias_sqbr]

I have not! And I should. I think I got it mixed up in my head with some other book with a similar title which turned out to be written in verse, so I crossed it off my "to read" list. *adds back to list*

[alias_sqbr]

arising from the life-changing event like an added bonus

This description applies to a lot of movie romances too :/

[alias_sqbr]

I wrote a friendship story yesterday, and I specifically didn't want to ship the two main characters but some shippiness got in there anyway despite my best efforts :)

I used to think I didn't like too many dark stories but a few people commented on how distressing they found some of my favourite "light" reading and I realised I wasn't counting them as dark/distressing etc since while they go to very dark places in the middle they're happy at the beginning and the end. (Lois McMaster Bujold does this consistently)

[alias_sqbr]

Oh god mainstream "literature" don't get me started. Though I think part of my problem is the combination of Sturgeon's law and not knowing where to start, I've found some really good stuff through fandom which appeals to my fangirly tastes despite being mainstream-y.

[velithya]

I tend to like a lot of hurt/comfort stories, I don't mind what happens in the hurt part of it but if there is not comfort at the end I am like, wow, what a complete lack of resolution there, thanks

[alias_sqbr]

Oh yes I've had that happen to me. Blarg.

EDIT: No, I realised what it is I really find annoying: what I think is a romance but they don't get together in the end.

[(Anonymous)]

"I wrote a bit of meta a while back about how I really like the Huge Happy Ending"

Link plz?

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

http://aris-tgd.dreamwidth.org/16068.html <-- That one. Whoo, that was longer ago than I thought.

[alias_sqbr]

That was really interesting.

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It's not like I don't like writing short pieces, but figuring out how my longer and more epic stuff fits together makes me happy. Even if it does make me feel like I'm spinning my wheels a bit sometimes. ;)