: Re: Does my protagonist *have* to succeed? I'm thinking about a YA dystopian novel and have planned it quite thoroughly. However, when I look back, the antagonists tend to always be a few steps

@Goswami879

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Promises to the Reader

This is one of my favorite models for understanding what readers will or will not accept.

The idea is that every story promises its readers that certain things will happen. Some of these promises made by the genre. A murder mystery will reveal who the murderer was, and how they achieved the murder. A space opera will include epic space battles. Horrible things will happen to the characters in a horror novel. Some of the promises are made by the title. Of Mice and Men was not going to see the protagonists achieve their plans. Other promises are made in the story. When Luke leaves his training early in Empire Strikes Back, it promises an duel between him and Darth Vader.

Fulfilling these promises is vital if you want readers to enjoy your story. At the same time, how the promises are fulfilled is left up to the author. Indeed, fulfilling promises in unexpected ways is keeping your story interesting.

Leaving promises unfulfilled is dangerous. It is, however, possible to trick readers into thinking you promised one thing while instead promising something else. This is basically the purpose of a red herring.

Identifying what promises you've made to the reader, and how well you've fulfilled them is an excellent way to predict how the story will be received

What this means for you

Your story should not promise to end in the hero's victory. This promise is not intrinsic to storytelling - a Tragedy, for example, promises to end in the hero's failure. It is, however, incredibly common. Many readers will assume that you are promising a hero's victory (particularly in YA, where this promise is even more common than average) unless you very carefully signal that this is not a promise that you are making.

Signaling that you are not promising a hero's victory is not the same as promising the hero's failure. But signaling properly will help ensure that your readers are satisfied by the ending you provide them.

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