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Metafictional stories often involve a narrator who engages readers directly. In “Happy Endings,” the narrative voice asserts itself from the story’s opening lines, which direct readers to start reading at a particular point, if they prefer stories with happy endings. Throughout the story, the narrator addresses readers familiarly as you, teases readers from time to time, and strongly insists that readers agree to certain claims, particularly the claim that all stories end in the characters’ deaths. The narrator seems to hold a one-sided conversation with readers, posing questions and scenarios, anticipating readers’ possible objections, and emphasizing important points. For example, in the coda that follows variation F, the narrator concedes that the sample plots are conventional and even trite and that many aspiring writers have more exciting plots in mind. The narrator grants readers permission to try out these plots but warns: “see how far that gets you.” Since one purpose of metafiction is to discuss the nature of fiction itself, this exchange allows the narrator to make a point about story plots. Vary the details as a writer may, the plot is still essentially the same. Characters meet, some combination of events happens, conflicts arise to engage readers’ interests and are then resolved, and every time, death is the story’s end.
This fact does not cause the narrator to give up on story, however, because the appeal of story is not in the “what” but in the “How and Why.” The narrator’s final word to readers is an imperative that they try these motivations, which may generate stories that engage. The variations in “Happy Endings” demonstrate the narrator’s point. Variation A presents whats without conflict, but B and C, in which the characters are driven by their individual hows and whys, do a better job of holding readers’ attention.
