Always fun to reference The Princess Bride. And what about the quote above? Sage words from Mr. Hemingway? For me, yes. Happy, saccharine writing is bad writing, from me, anyway. Finding some silver linings, perhaps, some windows of redemption, in a world gone otherwise dark? Now there's some territory to mine.
To wit, this excerpt from my work in progress. Kind of an undercurrent of much of my work. What about you? You prefer happy writing, or at least, happy endings? Is your best work extracted by giving voice to your pain? Please weigh in...
Losing her cut him to the quick, and the pain never ebbed. Only deepened, in fact. And where was the mystery in this? She was the
love of his life, and this love redoubled with each beat of his heart, and
continued to do so no matter her absence, for it was a devotion born not of
possession, but bequeathment. A heart given over. A life. He missed her beyond all measure, but his wish was no longer for her return, but for her happiness. For one fallen faithless, his lone, remaining gospel. And so it pierced like a knife, one he
wasn’t certain he’d pull out if he could. No masochism in this, pray tell; no
ill-conceived martyrdom. He simply feared what would happen when the blade at
last came out; that all the life would run out of him, and it wasn’t the
emptiness which scared him most, but rather the thought of what cold, sinister things might find their way in.
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