: Should I follow my instinct or public demand when writing a story? What would you do if you faced the same dilemma Sir Arthur Conan Doyle faced when he actually wanted to end "Sherlock Holmes"

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Allow me to provide a wholly practical opinion on the matter.

At any point in your writting, what's more important to you? The money, or your pride? There's nothing wrong with either. You certainly need to pay the bills, but it would be nice to be honored for a marvelous creation. (Obviously, it would be nice to do both... but that would kinda negate the purpose for asking your question).

Therefore, if paying the bills is more important than your pride, you write for public demand.

If you want to (e.g.) write for an award (Pulitzer Prize, maybe?) then you need to write for your pride.

IMHO, writers often need to do a little of both. It's like actors/actresses contracting for both indie films and summer blockbusters. The former often showcases their full talents, but are usually only seen by people who attend the Sundance Film Festival. The later pays the bills, but rarely showcases full talent.

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Well I would say that you should make people want to read the book.Normally I would say follow your instinct but if that would make people not want to read it then I say listen to the public. ;)

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Stories are like puzzles. You start by outlining the whole thing, than add one piece after the other, taking care that the new pieces fit the work you have already created. The ending of a story is the last piece you insert into your puzzle: It completes the picture, and only when it is in place will you be able to understand the story in its entirety. Conversely, the last piece of your puzzle -- your ending -- is so strongly confined by what you have already laid out that there's hardly any room left for eventualities. Try to cram in a piece that does not fit and you will ruin the entire puzzle.

Observe that this has nothing to do with the puzzle designer wanting something else than you, the puzzle solver. Because it is a puzzle and unless it is broken or you mixed it up with another puzzle or you lost a piece, the last piece will fit in. Of course, you are free to not like the puzzle once it is finished. You are allowed to critize what you see and think: "I would have preferred another picture". But this has nothing to do with the puzzle per se -- rather, it is because your taste is different from the taste of the puzzle designer.

I believe (imagine that word underlined twice, because I honestly cannot prove this claim) that stories are to a degree independent of the storyteller. Stories are abstract entities that are just there. You, as the storyteller, can not create them -- you discover them. Because of this, what storytelling really boils down to for me is honesty. You have your idea, you have your characters, and while writing down your story or telling it in any other way, you discover it, piece by piece, like a puzzle, until it is complete. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to tell when a story is complete. To me, it's an abstract feeling that all the elements fit together and that the story I tell is as independent as possible from what I want for the story. Only when I feel that everything that happens in the story is necessary, natural to the characters, and a consequence of what has happened before, does the story feel right. As long as I read a scene, frown and think: "Something else could happen here", I'm not done discovering the story. (And the fun thing is: When my test readers critize my work, it's usually because of things that I had not fully discovered yet.) This act of discovering of what really happens in your story is all about honesty -- you need to be honest to yourself and to your characters. This can be very hard, because you do have a vision for your story and sometimes this vision blinds you for the truth of your story. But my experience is that not seeking this inherent truth of a story and settling for something that you forced onto the story leads to unconvincing stories in the end(1).

And now: The readers. I think, this is very simple. Readers are extremely good at detecting inconsistencies in your story. In fact, they are much better at it than you are, because they do not share your story vision and hence can not be blinded by it. Consequently, when you write something that is not honest to your story, your readers will find it, and they will not like it.

This, however, is independent of the point in the story at which the dishonesty occurs. It can be the ending, but it need not be.

Side note: What does "writing for an audience" actually mean? Does it mean to write a book that sells well to a specific target audience? If this is the case, "writing for an audience" is independent of the ending of your story. I do not buy books, because I know the ending and like it. I buy them, because I am interested in the story that they advertise and I am curious about how the story solves the problem that it poses. Solving this problem may take several books in a series, but in the end, I want to know how it is dealt with. In agreement with the puzzle analogy above, this finale of a series should be well prepared and inevitable. If the story is told well and captured my interest throughout an entire series of books, I do not see how it could disappoint me -- unless it does not fit the preceding story.

Bringing all of this together, I would answer your question as follows: I think your question is not whether the ending of your story should cater to the tastes of your audience. The ending of a story is the inevitable result of the story itself -- changing it means to change everything that happened before. Effectively, you will end up a different story.

Rather, your question is whether you should write your stories for your audience or for yourself. And this question, you have to answer for yourself (as other commentators already observed).

(1) Example: Stephen King's story "The Secret Window". The ending of this book feels like an enormous cheat. When I read it, I was under the impression that King was scared to write down the ending that the entire story was pointing to -- because it is ugly and bleak and horrible and hardly anybody wants to read a story like that. However, giving his story an unexpected "happy" ending turned out just as desastrous. The reason is that it was not fitting the preceding 90% of the story. It felt wrong on every level, and I felt betrayed and lied to by Stepehen King. The fact that I immediately remembered the "Secret Window" -- a story that I first saw in its movie adaption twelve years ago and read shortly after -- when I saw your question tells you something about how lasting the bad impression was that I took from the book. If I hadn't known Stephen King to be an occasional storytelling genius when I read "The Secret Window", I would have never touched another Stephen King book in my life.

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It think this is a question that most writers face and struggle with finding an answer to. Unfortunately the current answers are mostly the private opinions of the answerers.

Well, that was exactly the question, was it not? I quote:

If you wanted to end your popular story / series in a tragedy, would you still go ahead if you knew that your target audience wanted a happy ending?

And this is what the answers are trying to address. My personal favorite is @papidave 's, but the fact that I can relate to it, does not mean that everyone else can.

Maybe we can come up with an answer that can help others to find their own answer? An answer that explains the pros and cons of both decisions and shows up a way to reconcile them.

I do not think that this question has a single answer. The pros and cons of such decisions would depend on the infinite variety of personal and professional circumstances, surrounding the inciting conflict of interests, and any attempt to summarize the options would border on speculation.

I would follow the story and see where it leads me. Any attempts to bend the ending to please anyone else would ring false to me, and, therefore, work against the story.

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Another thing to consider when writing your ending is not what you want, nor what you think the audience wants, but rather what does the story want? I am a firm believer that if you tell a story well, the ending will feel right to you and to the reader alike. If instead you get to the end of your tale and the ending you want doesn't "fit" what you want, perhaps the expectations you set up in the first 90% of the book don't fit what you want, either.

This is an example of "fulfilling promises to your reader" that the folks at Writing Excuses talk about all the time, e.g. here. It won't be easy to rewrite your story to make different promises, but I don't think you will ever be satisfied long-term with a story and an ending that don't fit well. On the plus side, there is at least one person who wants to see that ending, and if you put the right tale in front of that ending, you may discover there are many more.

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I would probably act as Doyle did.
1) Certain of my popularity as an author, I would kill the character and hope people started reading my other books.
2) Gradually become frustrated.
3) Eventually write another Holmes story, possibly while grumbling.

Oh, to have such a problem.

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In my opinion you must do what you think is the better, look empty but i have seen so many authors writing wonderfull books and don't know when to stop.

I ll be sad but i ll respect the choice of an author to end his story than continue to writing only for cash and be mediocre at end.
5 or 6 names come in my mind of authors i was blind of admiration and now i can't even read again one of their books.

Don't rush the things and do what you feel is the better.

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Terry Pratchett once said something along the lines of 'If I'd listened to the public I'd have written twenty Rincewind books'. And he would have had an audience for that, but he'd have been a different kind of writer.
Some writers clearly respond to the demand for more of the same to the point where even those who clamoured for it find it stale, Look at some of Janet Evanovich's Amazon reviews for later Stephanie Plum books for example.
Other writers seem to mix and match: Charlaine Harris gave readers all the Eric they wanted but paired Sookie up with the guy she always planned.
So I think the answer is that it depends what kind of writer you are and how you balance your trust in your readers' ability to trust you.

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You have two reasons to study medicine: 1-heal and help people, 2-buy a house. The same applies to writing. You can do it to please the others (earning something from others) or enjoy writing (do without expecting rewards).

I am a supporter of a world of collaborative people. But we are a minority. Most people prefer doing things that give rewards.

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