Happy Endings

In a former incarnation, when Fiorella taught English literature, she used to tell her classes that a happy ending depended on where the author ended the story.  For instance, "Cinderella" has a happy ending if the story stops just after the wedding.  But what happens a week later when Cindy discovers Prince Charming has a foot fetish?

Quick switch to true life.  What happened to Princess Diana's HEA when learned that Charles had a longtime mistress he was devoted to?  What happens to our own lives, when disappointment or tragedy enfold us?

For the most part, we eventually pick ourselves up and start all over again, unless, of course, we're dead or the next thing to it.  That's why Fiorella never reads biographies, which, by their very nature, always end with the main character dying.  That's why she doesn't write tragedies, which start with HEA's and end with everything shot to hell--compare the confident, arrogant, happy Oedipus at the beginning of his eponymous (Fio loves using that word) drama to the wretched creature he is at the end of it.  Compare Othello in the first act of his own eponymous drama to Othello in the final act.

No, Fiorella writes romances, and she knows where to cut off the story.