Does a book necessarily have to have a happy ending?

Question

im in the progress of writing a book at the moment and i dont want it to have an ending.

obviously it has to end somewhere but could it just stop after the climax?

how would you feel if you read a book like this and had to draw your own conclusions?

Answer 1

I hate that. (Books where I have to make my own conclusions. )

Answer 2

If you've ever read 1984 you know about not happy endings. While it was really frustrating (I wanted to throw the book) at the end at least there was an ending. It also made you think a lot about how to be smarter than the protagonist.

Answer 3

Well, there are books without happy endings and its fine as long as the ending makes sense in the context of the story. Likewise, its not a good idea to have an unrealistically happy ending.

Answer 4

I wouldn't think that a book has to have a happy ending, but I do think most books need an ending that lets the reader know that nothing happens after this. The ability of the characters to continue on with the plot of the story, after the last page, needs to be removed (unless we are talking about a series here). It needs to be shown that the characters have moved onto different parts of their lives, or moved on to death.

If a book simply stopped after the climax, with no closing words, I might worry that there were pages missing.

Answer 5

Draw-your-own-conclusions books are their own special art form. Go for it! The end of The Giver, by Lois Lowry, is a good example, even though she brought the main character definitively back in Messenger, because I think The Giver can still be interpreted as a stand-alone with an ambiguous ending.

A book does NOT absolutely need closure, it just needs to be consistent with it's theme. As long as it is, the ending, while not necessarily satisfying (although it can be) will be right.

Answer 6

the best book i read didn't have a happy ending, but it was not one of those books that are completely depressing. It stopped right in an anxious moment and it left me clueless and bewildered, but it was awesome!

Answer 7

A book can have any kind of ending that works. That's the kicker--it has to work, and work well.

A book that just stops after the climax may be missing its ending altogether. Maybe you want your story to have an ambiguous ending, but it must have an ending, not just end.

Be aware, too, that if your goal is marketability, a happy ending is far more likely to be picked up by a publisher, because that's what readers buy.

Answer 8

Finish it. Most readers don't hate anything more than hanging strings. The ending doesn't have to be happy: just satisfying.