Fun (and not-so-fun) fact:
Another reason I couldn't give Clara and Charles a completely happy ending - and honestly, there wasn't enough character-building to just suddenly marry them - is that I'm a sucker for tragic stories. I love exploring heartbreak, loss, and the quiet ache of what could have been.
Originally, Charles wasn't going to make it back to Clara at all. In my head, the letters would stop arriving, the war would end, and he'd become one of the countless men who gave everything for their country, swallowed by the chaos of battle, finally finding peace in eternal sleep ,gone but never forgotten.
It would have been bittersweet: Clara, left behind, writing his obituary to honor his sacrifice, finally having the chance to tell him the words she never could. His letters would remain tucked away memories frozen in time, ending scene with Clara having moved on but still staring at his photograph in one of her framed newspaper article , where he would still look as handsome as the day she lost him.
This version would have shown his final moments, his death, and her heartbreak - but also her eventual healing. Right people, wrong century.
I didn't go that route, though, because everyone who saw the now deleted drafts said it was way too sad and depressing .
They wanted wedding bells, love, and all that jazz. In the end, after a lot of back-and-forth, I settled on... not a completely happy ending, but not fully tragic either. I left the rest to the imagination, somewhere between sorrow and hope.
