How does one write an unhappy ending?

@Jess lovely topic. I have a lot of thoughts on unhappy endings, but I haven’t got time to consolidate them all now, so I’ll just leave you with the biggest two.

The first is the concept of catharsis. The reader must be satisfied in some way or other. The reader must feel that something was gained; that the world is somehow better as they leave it than where it begun. It provides the release of strong emotions and leaves the reader feeling justified and content, even if they hate the way it ended for the MC’s sake.
This usually comes in the truth your MC learns over the course of the story. She may not get what she was originally wanting, but along the way, she had to learn something. There had to have been something that made her grow and change. If she can’t have what she wants, maybe it’s more important that the story taught her to be content without it. Perhaps she gained contentment. She has more wisdom, which is the ultimate gain.

The second ties in with and also slightly contradicts the first. If the ending is more bitter than bittersweet, there must be a solid lesson to be gained from it, that challenges the reader to look closer at their own heart and examine it carefully.
Catharsis must still be present, but it’s usually for the other characters and not the MC. This more bitter ending usually happens when the MC follows a negative arc and is lower as the story ends than when it began. The MC becomes someone we don’t want to be satisfied for— even if we pity them, they need to suffer the consequences of their actions.
Catharsis, therefore, comes from what the other characters (and the reader) learned from the MC’s fall rather than the MC himself.

Is that helpful?

@jess What Kate said. Basically, either the loss your character experiences needs to be necessary for them to become a better person or the ending is just plain tragic, but a side character learns something valuable from it and the readers are left with a lot of hope for that side character.

@jess what they said… *nods*

@jess I honestly don’t know what I’m doing. In my own writing. I don’t know how I would help you except for this one question: Is it BMA your OYAN or Crown of Ice. Because I agree with @kate-flournoy make the world seem better than she left it (if it’s BMA). Sure she doesn’t get what she wants but her actions have been very…unseemly to the HS. Lying, Betrayal, the fact she was born a villain. All of those things qualify as one big NOPE from them. But maybe as she walks away there is some sign the rest of the world is better off without the villains congregating and being so organized, and are now scattered as the sand upon the wind. O_o If it’s crown of Ice….I can’t help you. The plot CONTINUES TO CONFUSE ME I AM SO SORRY.