This week has been long. Interesting, but long. First, editing is always a hoot. So much fun that the minutes seem to creep by painfully slow. Second, lice. I don’t think I need to say more on that. I’d be happy to home school at this point. Ugh.
On the editing front, In the Bones is off to Beta Readers and already I’ve received awesome feedback. I love that I have such an amazing group of readers. I am truly a lucky gal. A few comments focused on my ending. I opted, against my first instinct, to go with a happy ending where the good guys did what was “right” according to our laws and societies morals. Well, I should know better than that. I mean, the only novel I’ve written with a “classic” happy ending was one that couldn’t go without it. It was so dark that the readers needed to see that light, to have that reward for sticking with my characters through their journey to the bowels of Hell and back.
That’s not to say the endings aren’t happy. They are. I believe the reader deserves that reward. However, they aren’t what you’d call a “morally correct” happy ending. I don’t want to give away too much, (You never know, these might actually be published one day.) but Dirty Truths, The Legend of Jackson Murphy, Ancient Blood, and a couple of others (let’s not forget several short fiction pieces as well) have satisfying endings that are not what a good girl would write. In other words, the baddie gets what’s coming, and then some. The good guy isn’t always squeaky clean and he (or she) doesn’t always resist the urge to take the law into his (or her) own hands.
Some don’t like these endings. A few believe that they’re unrealistic. I mean, in real life, we must always follow the law. Right?
Meh, I don’t think so. Think about it for just a moment. Ted Dekker, a favorite author of mine, once posed a question on his Facebook page. Actually he posed several, but the gist of them all was if you wouldn’t get caught for taking out a very bad person either before he could commit a horrific crime or after, would you do it?
I love this question. Why? Because it’s really interesting to see what people answer. If I had the power to eliminate someone who went around hurting children (for example) and I knew I wouldn’t be tossed in jail for it, that no one would ever know, you can bet I’d do it. Actually, I have a list here…oh, right. Blog. I’m kidding…no list. Just a…look, Clive is naked!
You’re always over-sharing. Really, Renee, you just need to stop and think before you type. Honestly. Give me the list. Now we’ll have to burn it.
Ahem, so anyway, my point is that fiction should be satisfying for the reader and sometimes satisfying is not necessarily morally, ethically, or legally “right”. Some villains deserve to suffer. No?
Dangling on the Edge of Insanity 