I have three friends on AFF that I know physically, beyond the constraints of my laptop. One writes great and action, one writes the most diabetes-inducing fluff, and I...I write the heart rending, soul-crushing angst.

I suppose it's because I'm a realist. A more cynical, pessimistic one, but a realist nonetheless. I adore good endings, god knows I do. But I find myself unable to "make" a good ending when the circumstances of my story haven't pointed to there being a light at the end of the tunnel. At all.

Riddle me this: why write an angst story and then have everyone all happy sunshine and rainbows at the end? It doesn't work that way; you kill the mood and the genre if you make an angst story suddenly have a happy ending out of nowhere. It's not like Edgar Allen Poe did that. 

Let's define a good ending. A good ending is usually when everything goes "right" and a bad ending is when everything goes "wrong". But what defines right and wrong in a story? Answer: It depends on the story.

An author has full control over whether a story will have a good or bad ending based on the context of the story. Hey, maybe a good ending in an angst story is that everyone is put out of their misery. In a fluff story, it's when the OTP couple in the story get together and do the frick and have babies. In stories that don't have a set genre (such as slice of life), the good ending is that everyone can continue living normally and doing their thing. A bad ending might be a bomb blowing up the city. It varies!

The question I want to ask is why does everybody want good endings? Sometimes they take away so much characterization and depth; sometimes a dark and complex character is reduced to a mere beaming sun-shine shell of what they used to be! 

I'm more adept at making an ending that fits rather than an ending that pleases. If my fic is a bit dark, I'll make it so that the ending fits with the mood but still feels like it completes my story. If it's bright, it'll receive a bright ending. In my two-shot "Artificiality," Character A dies, but Character B makes it so that there's hope. And sometimes hope is better than a solid ending, anyway. Readers can interpret things how they want. Open conclusions are sometimes the best conclusions.

As a writer, I write my endings to fit my story and make it feel like it has a clear conclusion. Some people might not like the ending and to that I simply have to say "tough ." Because if my story never pointed to a "Happily Ever After," why would I ever write one?