You read that right. Happiness should be used sparingly, precisely, and deliberately. In this essay I’m going to talk about the structural components of happiness: how and where you use it in your story.
Desire is the most fundamental of feelings. We all want things. We all want things that we can’t have. Showing our character’s trying to get the things they want but can’t have is what makes good storytelling: and it is done best when we don’t ever explicitly state what they are feeling.
Happiness is only useful in two places in a story:
1. If you’re about to take away from them (ideally in the most brutal, devastating way you can manage)
2. If it’s the end of the book, and you have decided to have a HEA or HFN (Happy Ever After or Happy for Now, these are industry terms so it’s worth learning them!) Note that if you’re writing modern romance (and most women’s fiction[i])in the hope of being published you are obliged to give your characters a happy ending. This is amusing in one sense, as when romance was born as a genre it almost always ended unhappily as the protagonist return to his loveless marriage and the heroine, well, typically dies. But it is more importantly a lesson in giving your readers what they want. Romance readers wants a happy ending. If your romance ends unhappily, then by modern publishing norms you’re writing a different genre and should sell it as such.
Back to the point: stories thrive on conflict and problem solving in emotionally charged circumstances where the protagonist is forced to change. Hopefully that has come up in the previous the previous essays!
The Beginning
Let’s start at the beginning. Your protagonist should always start the story unhappy. This does not mean depressive (a medical condition distinct but potentially involving unhappiness) or suicidal (a very strong mental state that must be delicately handled and researched.) People have all sorts of reactions to being unhappy.
In my latest manuscript my protagonist is trying to deal with her unhappiness by fighting everyone. She feels powerless and alone, and to handle this she attempts to fight the people she feels are responsible for how she feels. This, says the author of the story, is a good start.
However, remember from or earlier lessons, our protagonist also starts with a fundamental misunderstanding about the world that is preventing them from solving their unhappiness. This misunderstanding persists until the midpoint of the story when crisis forces them to re-evaluate their world view. It has to be a flaw in the character that is overcome, because that empowers them to fix it – otherwise they’re not the protagonist. So, an opportunity comes up, and we know they’re going to screw it up, but nonetheless that the character has an opportunity to change their world and (after initial hesitation) accept it: thus begins the story.
So where does happiness belong in the beginning?
It isn’t just in its absence. You need to be able to answer this question: what would make my character happy. Then, ideally somewhere in the first chapter, you need to show the reader:
a) What this thing is, and
b) What it is about the character that is stopping them seeing this/achieving this
The Middle
Right before our mid-point crisis, it helps to give our protagonist a flash of happiness. Why? We want them to believe that their incorrect approach to solving the problem has got them where they want to be. Why do we do that? Because it hurts more when we take it away. Fiction is a game for sadists. If they are briefly happy before everything gets fucked up, then things will seem so much worse and so much more interesting because they are compared to that moment of happiness. You need to give them exactly enough happiness to take it away.
So, about a chapter before everything blows up (leading into our final acts, where the protagonist faces their darkest hour and either triumphs (romance writers – they triumph) or fails to change and is destroyed, write a chapter where they think they’ve got everything they want. Now, try to avoid having them lie back and think “this is everything I want” – not the worst writing in the world, but not the best. Equally, having them say “I’m really happy right now” is the equivalent of the police officer saying “I’m one week from retirement.” You can use it. It’s been used before.
But you’re much better off if you show them in a happy place. This can be a good place for a sex scene, if you write that sort of thing (but remember – a sex-scene must always drive the plot and is sexier if it includes doubt. If I’m brave enough we’ll do a lesson about that.)
However, all that happiness be taken away as we go into the final act.
Happy Ever After or Happy for Now
The real place for happiness is in the last chapter of the book. I mean that. Make them happy then get out early (insert sex joke here)[ii]. This is where we answer the question that we asked at the beginning of the book: What would it take to make them happy? Show us them in that happy place now, and, furthermore, show how their changed world view is what allows them to be happy now.
Happy Ever After endings are what they sound like. Everything is worked out, all questions are settled, and you know they’re going to go on and have babies/benignly rule the kingdom/become a master warlock/happily run their own restaurant
Watch out with this for sequels. One of my favourite series as a youth was Memory, Sorrow and Thorn by Tad Williams (wonderful writer, wonderful books.) Spoilers: it ends happily. You know it’s going to end happily because of the style; because of the writer you are kept constantly wondering how on earth they can possibly get there.
However, he recently started releasing a sequel series set decades after the first starring (at least to begin with, I’m not sure how it goes) the same protagonist. Now, as writers, we know that to do this he has to take away their happiness. But I am enormously attached to how the first series ended. That’s what you do with a HEA. You make the reader feel good because they know everything will be okay. So, I haven’t started reading the new series (which I am sure is brilliant), because I don’t want to lose the HEA. Pay attention to what readers want![iii]
This is where Happy For Now is used in series, or in books that want to toy on the edge of the “French Ending” (the French are notoriously prepared to enjoy a book where everyone finishes off miserable. Also worth noting: comedies are the most popular films at the French box office, another genre that always finishes HEA). Happy For Now shows them in a happy place but identifies flaws, weakness, the potential for future failure. It is, arguable, a more sophisticated art. It gives you somewhere to go in a sequel. BUT, if what you reader wants is a happy ending, you better deliver a fantastically written HFN.
All this is still useful if you are writing tragedy. You still need to know what would make your protagonist happy (and done so in the first chapter), just so that you can show that they didn’t get it, and why. Remember: the impact will be utterly diminished if an unhappy ending is not at least in part (preferably mostly) the fault of the protagonist.
This can all sound rather technical. That’s because it is: writing is a technical art. If you aren’t asking these kinds of questions, then you don’t know your characters, and you won’t be able to produce the emotional response you are looking for. So: happiness. Use it three times. Use it sparingly. And only let them keep it a maximum of once.
EXERCISE:
We’re sticking with beginnings because nobody reads past a bad beginning – certainly not a publisher.
Write 200 words of a character who is unhappy. Show them unhappy, suggest what would make them happy (although the character may well be ignorant of this), and show what it is about the character that is making unhappy. Finish with the protagonist making a decision to fix their problem; but make sure that this decision is doomed to fail.
Good luck and happy writing!
[i] Yes, you read me right, women’s fiction is usually required to have a happy ending. I don’t know why. I don’t understand why the industry thinks women won’t read books with sad or ambiguous endings. But I’ve been told this exact thing by the people who choose if books are published or not, so if you idealistically insist you can write women’s fiction with sad ends then don’t be too surprised if you don’t get published. You’d be better off pushing your proactive female protagonist into another genre, like science fiction or book club fiction, if you want to write tragedy.
[ii] I meant to insert a sex joke here, but in the end I decided (insert sex joke here) was funnier – especially for all of us who have ever written (insert joke) or (insert sex scene) into their manuscript. You know who you are, and I’m one of you!
[iii] Let me add: I’m sure Tad Williams knows what he’s doing and the new series is great. I’m using this as an example of how even a great writer who knows how to balance risk, reward, happiness, and sadness, still risks alienating readers by threatening their HEA.
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