N is for…

Nice Neat Ending

A short post today because I’ve got people coming round for Chinese. 

As a writer I often read advice telling me to write the nice neat happy ending that readers want, but, life isn’t always nice and neat and shouldn’t stories reflect life?
I seem to be attracted to the darker side of human nature and tend to write this way too, does that mean that I won’t have any readers?
Or is it because life is not perfect that we want to read about happily ever after?
Readers is this true, do you always want a nice neat ending?
Is this restricted to particular genres?

Neatness is also about tying up loose ends and resolving the main and sub plots.
What tricks have other writers reading this got to keep track of this?