I am hard at work on the first book of my Prosperity, Montana, minsieries. This story has absorbed me completely. I hurt for my characters and the suffering they must endure. Sharing their pain on the page is difficult, both for my characters and for me, but that’s how it is. What makes the whole thing bearable is that I know that in the end, they will find the happiness they deserve.
Genre fiction readers expect upbeat endings in the form of character growth and change, and the hope of something good to come. Those kinds of endings are the payoff for all that suffering we endure as we read the story.
When that payoff doesn’t come, I feel disappointed and cheated, and it’s a safe bet that won’t pick up another book by the same author. The same goes with movies. Make me suffer, make me sit on the edge of my seat and chew my nails to the quick, but please, let a satisfying ending justify all that agony I endured. That doesn’t mean I expect everything to be perfect. All I ask for is that things are looking up.
What about you? Agree or disagree?
Until next time,
Ann