Cheever’s narratives rarely end ‘happily ever after’. Why might a writer choose to make their characters suffer?

Writers may make their characters suffer to make a story more engaging; it can add drama and create suspense. If a story is constantly happy and playing it safe, the reader will get bored, as it will become too predictable.

For years there has been a debate about the limited number of plots in existence. But the idea that every story could be categorized into a plot stereo-type means that writers have the pressure of trying to create something that is ‘new’. Having a character suffer provide the writer with the opportunity to play with the outcomes. 

As readers, seeing how a character overcomes the pit-falls thrown at them and/or develop throughout the story keeps you turning the page, because you want to know what happens. As children we are told the character live happily ever after, that good overpowers evil. But as we leave the comfort and safety of fairy tales, we encounter stories in which the characters have to overcome situations that are real. By making a character struggle through, the writer is showing the reader the realities of the real world, however if the character succeeds, the writer is also giving the reader a little hope.

I think the last line of The End, the last book in A Series of Unfortunate Event by Lemony Snicket sums up why characters sometime have to suffer.

'It is almost as if happiness is an acquires taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche, to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it.'