I read a submission once that was very well written, if a bit bleak. I asked to see the whole manuscript, and the overall quality was excellent, but there was a problem. Not a single one of her characters survived.
Now I'm as fond of a dark outlook as the next moderately gloomy person, but there are limits. I also know that unrelenting fictional misery is very hard to sell to a publisher. (Note, I say 'fictional' - there has been a well-publicised trend for Misery Memoirs about horrendously abused children, but that seems to be waning).
I wrote to the author explaining that I loved her style, but that the plot was too dark, what did she want to do about it? She wrote back immediately - saying she had another manuscript in her drawer, and this one was much more cheerful, did I want to see it?
I settled down to read it, feeling optimistic. It was more cheerful. Marginally. The two main characters survived the ensuing blood-bath, but they did end the novel having agreed on a suicide pact.
There is a thin line between writing for yourself, and writing for publication. No-one would recommend you try and write simply to get published, but there are commercial realities that the aspiring author needs to be aware of. In this case, the author preferred to continue with the body count, than try to get published.
What would you have done in her position?
(Editorial Consultant)
A nice angle to attract an agent and publisher, is to say you intend to write a series of books, possibly using the main characters in your book over and over again. I intend to do this by writing at least three books, but my tutor says I have at enough ideas for five or six books. [ no pressure there then ] Which is alright for him to say, as he doesn’t have to write them. Killing off characters has its advantages and disadvantages. You can introduce fresh characters as you eliminate old characters. But you can also ruin the tone of a good novel if you kill them all off. That’s a cop-out. The idea of rounded characters is to get the reader to like or dislike them, and then follow their journey through life. If all the characters in a book get killed off, I personally would feel cheated, and I wouldn’t read that author again. Good novels leave me asking questions about the future of the characters lives. What happened next?