Happily ever after (a discussion about unanswered questions)

As a writer do you feel its important that you have all questions that the novel brings up answered by the end of the novel, or do you think its OK to leave a few questions unanswered?
I guess the benefit of not answering all the questions would be if you plan on writing a sequal and also so your work doesn't become safe and predictable, however if a person, gets to the end of a story and theres some questions not answered would they feel cheated?

I think theres a difference between unanswered questions and inconsistencies that haven't been explained, the latter can make a piece of work seem sloapy and careless, but maybe unanswered questions can do too, what do people think?
S

 

I like things that leave questions unanswered, it makes it seem more real, I mean in our own life, we dont know all the details about the things going on around us, there are always questions, we only know things and people to a certain degree, and the rest we assume or imagine. I think is more fun when you dont know ALL the details, because to every person that reads it, the story will be slightly different, it brings up interesting interpretations and discussions.
I particularly dont want everything to be handed to me.

 

unanswered < open-ended

 

I definitely like to know how things turned out. This applies to nonfiction as well as fiction. For example there are some non-fiction authors, writing ten or more years after an event such as a war, who write an epilogue with a 'where are they today' section telling you what happened to the major players and some of the minor ones.

 

It depends on what kind of story you're writing.

If you're doing something that's heavy on plot with not so deep characters, then it's kind of important.

If it's character-driven, it doesn't have to end with all the questions being answered, but you do need to provide some kind of insight into the character, and there needs to be some kind of decision being made that reveals what they are capable of, and makes some kind of statement about who they are.

Anyway, something has to happen or you have to make some kind of original statement that rings true or it's really not worth writing in the first place.