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Topic : This answer is highly, highly subjective. But I personally dislike almost every YA dystopian future novel I've ever read (they're all the same thing to me and they're all predictable), so I - selfpublishingguru.com

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This answer is highly, highly subjective. But I personally dislike almost every YA dystopian future novel I've ever read (they're all the same thing to me and they're all predictable), so I think if you're asking about reader expectations, I might be a good person to answer the question... mostly because I see similarities in all of the YA novels I've slogged through. So maybe I can point out what things I think readers expect. But again, not a fan of YA dystopias.

Also, the links. They are all to TVTropes. You're welcome.

What end would they expect in a YA dystopian novel?

Either the underdogs win or the underdogs win. So, you know. Choice 2.

This isn't to say that this is the best ending, but it is what people expect. If you put a rag-tag team together in real life to battle it out against 20 other people who (assumedly) are a group, then... they probably won't make it if the 20 people are a bunch of rich philanthropists willing to throw money at some crazy plan to all become equal parts Lex Luthor. In a book, though? The underdogs probably win. Even against those odds. It's not even a surprise, it's just something we consider to be true.

Anyway this is still pretty dependent on the 20 people-- if they're the 20 people running the dystopian future, then your heroes going through with it but now having a moral quandary on their hands is expected. We expect Batman to beat the Joker because the Joker is the bad guy doing bad guy stuff and working for the forces of bad. If the 20 people are people working to keep the dsytopia running and they are doing bad stuff to do it, then it is ending 2 is expected. Unexpected is "So then we all talked about what to do and ended up doing nothing" even though that's realistic (based on protagonist age and socio-economic status among other things).

However, you're saying that the description you gave us is basically all the readers get (I think?) in which case we don't know:

If the 20 are working together
If the 20 are the cause of the dystopia's inner workings
If the 20 are good/bad people
If the 20 are related (to each other or to the protagonists)
If the 20 are corrupt somehow and could be fixed another way
If the 20 know each other

And in that case, indiscriminately killing 20 people we know nothing about would probably end pretty badly. Sure, there's a chance our heroes are killing bad guys. But they could also be killing good guys. Or morally ambiguous guys. What do we expect when you're killing indiscriminately with no reason? We expect punishment even if the characters are supposed to be doing "good". Recalling that no matter how awesome you are, CRIME DOES NOT PAY (except for the women and the cars and the money and the Towers of Doom), anyone who is just skulking around killing people should eventually get their come-uppance, unless they're good guys being forced to do such a thing in which case, they will be vindicated.

I will also note that the other two endings are usually routes taken by "weak" characters. In our YA dystopian books/movies that are now popular, the protagonists are always proactive, even if there are obvious downfalls to their pro-activity, and then they get out of those with sheer pluckiness. Weak characters are indecisive and walk away from problems instead of being chipper plucky problem solvers (generalization). Sometimes this is the best decision. But we play them up like they are not. Even if the protagonists act weak (are indecisive) they will come to a conclusion that is generally not of the "go home and suffer quietly" variety.

Which end would satisfy readers most?

This is... kind of reader based. Generally speaking, I think the second ending is the most satisfying, even though it's expected... but that's still not saying much.

Part of it could be that people like to be right-- if they guess that at the end of your book, the 20 people are dead and then... you end the book and the 20 people are dead, they feel good. Harry Potter spent 7 books killing Voldemort and we all knew Voldemort's number was up after book 1. Sure there were probably people wishing he'd live, but I don't doubt most people were aware he couldn't make it past the last book and still be evil. We aren't surprised by the ending itself. The surprise is how the ending is reached, how smoothly it's executed, and so on. So people expect something and thinking they'll be right, they read through and hopefully come to the conclusion that they are right. And being right can conjure up feelings of satisfaction, so long as there are surprises along the way. On the other hand, it can also bring up the notion "this is tired," if the story isn't written well enough for someone's personal tastes. Given that there are multiple types of people reading your story each with different tastes and experiences... there is no surefire way to know for certain what will be the most satisfying.

Judging by the way we have been writing books (and interpreting them for the masses), it is far more likely that you'll reach wider audiences with ending 2. And by reaching wider audiences, you would end up satisfying/letting down a greater range of people. Then it just turns into a numbers game, but with a large audience reached successfully... you would be able to tailor the book to satisfy the majority.


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