Let’s face the music, and dance

4 April 2013 by Davide Mana 12 Comments

This is not exactly the post I had in mind – I’ve been posting an awful lot about writing, recently, and I guess my readers might like some variety.
But, bear with me, this one is really a spontaneous, straight away thing.
And it somewhat connects with the post I did about themes.

It all started because the post my friend Chiara did on her blog, about happy endings.
And because of a long talk I had with The Guys*, about women, broken hearts and expectations in a relationship.
So, yes, expect something weird…

Let’s start by stating that my friend Chiara does not believe in “perfect” happy endings.
The dread “What Next?” is there to unsettle the balance.
And I somewhat agree with her – happy endings tying together neatly all the loose ends and de facto stopping thestory, are not my kind of thing, either.
But, on the other hand, I am highly suspicious of “downer endings” – those which basically tell us that it was all for nothing, life sucks, and nothing ever goes as planned**…
I am suspicious because it feels (often) as a way for the author to wink at the reader, suggesting they both are so world-weary and blasé they can laugh at such romantic notions like happy endings.
Sometimes the tragic ending is as dishonest and manipulative, and fake, as the best (…) happy endings out there.

And yet I do believe in endings that locally tie up as many loose ends as possible, and at least for a while grant a modicum of happyness to the main characters.

This because in my universe, the answer to the dread “What next?” is, “Having survived the struggle so far, the characters will give their best should things turn bad again.”

So the point should be, at least to me, not if the ending is happy or sad, but if it allows for the fact that characters will face the music, and dance***.

Or to put it another way, I think both Chiara and myself, we are not pro or againts happy or sad – we simply can’t stand endings that deny the fact that happiness is never absolute and eternal, unhappines neither.
We might differ in how we feel the character’s reaction to the change might be – because she’s a serious writer, I’m a hack who’s fond of heroes and knaves.

This attitude towards adversity and how things end, I think is important, because we are made of the stories we tell ourselves.
Which leads me, by a rather circuitous way, to the talk with The Guys, and the effect that narratives have on our lives.
Anyone who’s been around a while will have noticed – as the Guys and me noticed – that a lot of suffering out there comes from the fact that reality fails to conform to the fictions we create about ourselves, and which are based in turn on thestories we tell each other, and tell ourselves.
Stories build expectations.
In this sense, the stories we read are an important part of what we might call our sentimental education.
Sure, no fiction survives the impact with reality – but some fictions are more flexible and resilient than others.
That’s the sort of fiction I think is worth writing – not because I want to teach something, or give some kind of “message” – but because that’s thesort of stories that, in my experience, have left the strongest and more lasting impression.
The stories which have thaught me something.
And still, being an optimist, I want a modicum of happyness.

That’s why I still like a good – if momentary – happy ending.
Because I firmly believe that giving your best against adversities counts for something, and I want to reinforce the idea with a little free happiness at the end of thestory.
And that’s why cynical and “mock-realistic”, “life sucks” endings are – to me – as bad as “all shall be well” endings.
They create false expectations, they promote cynicism or shallowness.
All shall be well is fine with me****, as long as we make it clear that it is not a given, and it’s well because we struggle to make it so.

Unrealistic expectations based on unrealistic (or plain silly) stories are a source of grief.
As a writer, I’m writing to make this place better.
So, grief is not an option.

And this is it – next up, a post that has nothing to do with writing.
Maybe.

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* Anyone writing seriously should have his own version The Guys (those guys you can talk with about anything, in a good mix of seriousness and ridicule), for sharing endless nights talking about whatever happens to be the subject at hand, with no machismo or posturing involved.
It keeps the juices flowing.

** … which of course was a song by Styx.
This should tell us something.

*** Yes, I’m using Irving Berlin against Styx.
The cheek I have sometimes…

**** Also because it’s a Pete Townshend song.