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The last line here. So many people have bought into this idea, which let's call the Tolstoy Fallacy. ("Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.") Yeah, that's bollocks. https://twitter.com/paleburnedacid/status/1334206831829397505
Skim a relationship forum for a few weeks and you will see an awful lot of the same misery repeating itself. Over and over, so much that shorthand stock phrases are developed to identify the species.
Happiness is unique. A HEA of two people choosing to love and be together means two individuals with their own values and pasts and failings finding a track that works for them both. It's the definition of individual because it cares about the individual.
I mean, it's a lot easier to get an effect on the page with an abuse scene or a depiction of misery. You can stir those feelings up in the reader no trouble, and call it a Big Serious Work.
Which could you do most quickly and easily?
--Make someone cry with pain
--Make someone cry with unhappiness
--Make someone cry with laughter
--Make someone cry with happiness
Quite.
--Make someone cry with pain
--Make someone cry with unhappiness
--Make someone cry with laughter
--Make someone cry with happiness
Quite.
Happiness (especially involving others) is far more complicated and difficult to achieve and sustain than unhappiness. It takes work and thought and care. It deserves respect.
