Forum: Author Hangout

I do a prologue featuring a funeral then start 35 years earlier. Will there be a HEA?

I do a prologue featuring a funeral then start 35 years earlier. Will there be a HEA?

Doesn't the movie "The Bucket List" begin with the guy taking Jack Nicholson's ashes up the mountain? It begins with both main characters dead. But it was a happy ending.

Per the ancient advice of Solon, "Count no man happy until he be dead". That means that happiness is fleeting, and there are many, many stories where things go great until suddenly they don't. Sometimes (as with Oedipus, for instance) one finds that the happiness was itself based on a lie (Oedipus having achieved his position by unwittingly killing his father and marrying his mother).

A story where the ending is known certainly allows a happy ending by Solon's criteria. Nothing can go wrong for the guy - if he died happy, that's good enough.

Now, if the story involves life after death, then I'd say he's not really dead, not in the 'it's all over and done with' sense, and therefore things can still go wrong.

The prologue gives away (after one has read the first chapter as well) that 35 years later one of the MC's is dead and the other is married and greatly misses her. Which is then why he tells their story. I got one email claiming that ruined the story and they refused to read further, but I always liked the scene.

Sounds like your reader was more interested in the destination than the journey.

I'm interested enough in the destination, rather than the journey, that I've been known to look ahead and see if so-and-so survives the story. There are times when knowing that they won't 'ruins the story' for me, and I'm much better off stepping away from the story now than being frustrated later.

In Part 1 of Ancient Abilities, which was merged with Chocolateen to create The Tasks, I killed off a major character who was pregnant. One of my readers was very upset with what I did and vowed to never read any further stories that I posted.

That is a case of the journey ruining the ending of Part 1 of Ancient Abilities, However, that "dead" character took on a different major role in Part 2 of Ancient Abilities. She also appeared in the Part 2 of Chocolateen, which was the second story that I merged with Ancient Abilities,

One of my readers was very upset with what I did and vowed to never read any further stories that I posted.

I had a reader rage quit when I had a young woman die in childbirth.

With my woman, she died in a traffic accident.

Some people cannot accept the realities of life when it is presented in a story. They want a happy ending and cannot tolerate something harming the characters they like.

In a way, I take that as a compliment. I must have done a good job of creating the character if the reader identifies that strongly with the character .

In a way, I take that as a compliment. I must have done a good job of creating the character if the reader identifies that strongly with the character .

Agreed. I haven't shied away from killing lovable characters in my stories. Their deaths usually evoke emotional responses.

Agreed. I haven't shied away from killing lovable characters in my stories. Their deaths usually evoke emotional responses.

Sadly, all the needles I stuck in my Michael Loucks doll, after you killed off Stephanie, failed to inflict the desired amount of pain :-(

AJ

Sadly, all the needles I stuck in my Michael Loucks doll, after you killed off Stephanie, failed to inflict the desired amount of pain :-(

Stephie (Grant). Stephanie is Steve's sisster. :-)

And that was very, very painful to write, though I know that's no consolation.

[Edited to fix my spelling. My damned eyes are giving me trouble and autocorrect got me and I didn't notice it.]

Stephie (Grant). Stephanie is Steve's sisster. :-)

Oops, my mistake.

And that was very, very painful to right

Oops, your mistake ;-)

AJ

Oh, man, I didn't get that far yet, but I know she was sick.

I cursed at you for the ending to Book One.

One of my readers was very upset with what I did and vowed to never read any further stories that I posted.

I guess readers don't like characters dying. I had complaints that one of my MC's best friends committed suicide in "The Nymphomaniac." There were so many reasons for that to happen.

There are a lot of reactions there, and largely it's an 'it depends'. Quite a bit has to do with what the death does to the story and the other characters. Another part has to do with what the character has done up to then.

Michael Loucks gave the example of Steffie Grant, which was a very painful, very tragic death. It also 'fit,' at least for me. It like a mirror of reality. Sometimes very bad things like that happen.

There's another story on this site (which I won't call out) which is well-regarded and where a major character dies. In that one, while I continued reading the story and ultimately liked it, the death still feels misplaced. It didn't add enough to the story to be meaningful, and it reminded me too much of 'fridging'.

For those unfamiliar with the term, 'fridging' is a term used for a character whose death serves as a major motivation for the MC (or sometimes the plot in general), but where the character has little existence beyond their death. Their purpose in the story is to die; their importance is in how their death motivates others (not how they, in living, motivated others).

In still others, sometimes the reason I'm enjoying the story is the dynamic between X and Y. If Y is going to die, that dynamic will be gone. With it goes the enjoyment of the story.

I had a character unsuccessfully attempt suicide and reactions were not very happy at the time. Writing that was tricky; there had to be a solid reason for her to do what she did, and it had to be telegraphed yet also invisible to the MC (who was her boyfriend). It was also painful; I very much did not enjoy writing large parts of that section. And I also got accused of 'fridging,' but (at least in my opinion) that was neither how we got to that point nor how things proceeded after.

I have one dead character but she was already dead three years when the story starts. The memory of her rape and murder is painful for the MC, her cousin, and affects his actions. Her first mention is when the MC is about to do something potentially criminal and his conscience flashes her image. The 2nd is when he explains what happened to her to his love interest, and lastly on a trip to that area he visits her grave.

I was shocked to read that, and of the 2nd death, but it was well set up in the story.

it would be extremely difficult, if not immpossible to have a "suprise" ending.

Unless the ending you see in the beginning is not the real ending. There was a movie (I think "Casino" but not sure) where the car blows up in the beginning. At the end of the movie you find out the guy in the car survived. Another movie ("The Irishman"?) has the guy get shot in the beginning. You even see his blood splatter. At the end you find out the blood was the guy's who you thought shot him in the beginning.

As to "Saving Private Ryan," if I remember, the first time I saw it I forgot how it started once I got into it. So I didn't know the Tom Hanks character was going to die.

Tangent: for those who like Columbo-style mysteries, I'd recommend checking out 'Poker Face'. It's a Rian Johnson-created mystery series starring Natasha Lyonne (who completely makes the show) as a woman named Charlie who can always spot a lie. Stuff happens in the first episode that puts her on the run, and as she's running from town to town, there's always a murder to solve. The first third (or so) of the show is the murder, which happens before she's on scene, so you know exactly whodunnit, how, and why. The fun part is watching how she manages to solve it and get justice given limited time and resources.

By the nature of the show, Charlie is nearly the only recurring character; everyone else is a guest star.