Tuesday's Inspiration based on an essay by Faith Baldwin #MFRWauthor

The first thing that struck me has nothing ot do with Ms. Baldwin's writing but that she was born in New Rochelle just across the river from where I life. She was a prolific writer of short stories and novels.

"A writer is lucky.He can set down a problem and solve it to, he hopes, the satisfaction of an editor or a reader."

To me this doesn't necessarily mean the "happy ending." I write in several genres and sometimes the ending is satisfactory to me but not the traditional happy ever after. Several of my stories have endings that may not be what the reader expects as happy ever after. They aren't even happy for now. But considering the characters, the world and what I'm aiming for the ending is satisfactory. Reviewers have commented on this at least once, with a warning to the reader that the ending while satisfactory might not satisfy every reader.

So we come to this point. An ending doesn't have to be happy, or even happy for now. The ending must consider the state of the characters and what satisfies them. So craft your endings in a way that brings the reader to nod and say I can see why the story ended that way.