This Life Isn’t Filled With Certainties, So Why Should Fiction?

I didn’t end “Amateurs Play Elsewhere” on a cliffhanger. It’s the last in the series and I don’t believe in ending series on cliffhangers.

The final chapter is an overall happy note, with the bad guys getting hit where it hurts and the good guys cheering a victory. Ta da!

But I’ll admit I did leave some issues unresolved. And some of my pre-published readers called me out on it. They wanted to know more.

I told them tough luck.

I said this with all love and respect. Really. These are two people who helped me out immensely in making the Dirty Politics series as strong as it is, and I owe them a lot. In fact, I owe the one the equivalent of $4,000 for editorial services rendered.

(Buy my books and I can actually afford to pay that debt! Just kidding. Kind of.)

Yet, I chose to discard their feedback on this particular issue. I didn’t ignore it. I actually thought about it quite carefully. But in the end, I decided to stick to the ending I’d already written. And for a very good reason.

You see, I like fairytales as much as the next girl. All of that happily-ever-after ending stuff? It makes my Disney-bred heart melt. But they’re not very realistic, are they?

This life we get to lead down here on Earth is filled with ups and downs, victories and defeats, and a lot of overall uncertainty. Despite our best-laid plans, we can’t determine the future.

It’s not ours to control. Never was, never will be. So why should our reality-based fiction be any different?

Let Disney keep its fairytales. I’m not trying to mess with them, which I greatly prefer to the original Grimm versions, I gotta say. Cutting off toes and heels? Ew!

But for anything that isn’t meant for little kids (of any age)… Well, those don’t have to wrap up every last detail. Not when I’m trying to make them realistic.