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.

Switching From Fantasy to Thrillers – Why Do I Write Across Genres?

I might be working on Faerietales 4, but I’m done publishing fantasy fiction for the year. I’m now switching over to the world of thrillers. Political thrillers, to be precise.

Which means that as of the 24th of May, I will have published Christian fiction, historical fiction, fantasy and modern fiction.

All I need to do is add in some mystery, chick-lit, young adult and sci-fi, and maybe the next “Fifty Shades of Grey,” and I’ll be a mini Barnes & Noble.

Just kidding about “Fifty Shades of Grey.” I have soooooo much more dignity than that. Not to mention talent.

I also don’t have plans to plot out mysteries, not because I don’t like them but because I’m not sure if I have the right type of mind to write that way. More power to those authors who do though.

But other than those two genres, I’m open to whatever the muse strikes me with. And since my particular muse likes to strike me with a whole lot of randomness, that means, in some ways, she’s a lousy one to have.

You see, most authors make a living for themselves by building up an audience. And how do you build up an audience? You appeal to the same people over and over and over again so that they keep buying up each new book that you debut.

Most people do have a particular genre they consistently turn to. Hence the reason why fantasy writers stick to writing fantasy.

Christian fiction writers don’t write anything but Christian fiction.

Historical fiction writers and thriller writers? Yeah… It’s usually the same thing.

My muse, however, apparently isn’t a capitalist. Or maybe she is, but just isn’t the brightest entrepreneurial spirit in the box.

Go figure I’d get a flighty one.

With that said, I cannot wait to tell you more about Dirty Politics 1: “The Politician’s Pawn” next month.

Because as inconsistent as my muse is, she sure can come up with one heck of a story line…

Sabrina Is As Human As a Faerie Can Be: A Rant Against Hollywood-Style Feminism

I’m going to go off on a writer’s rant for today’s blogpost about how I really can’t stand Hollywood sometimes, especially when it comes to how it portrays women.

No, I’m not going to accuse it of baring all our assets all the time, turning us into a closed box of bedroom fantasy characters. Though that’s true too.

I’m actually going to take issue with how kick-derriere those bedroom-fantasy heroines are these days. They’re physically, emotionally, psychologically and intellectually capable of handling just about anything that comes their way.

In other words, they’re not really human. They’re false portrayals of what feminism can be, giving women everywhere the idea that we can constantly bend a boardroom of hostile coworkers to our will, turn the tables on four – count them: four – bad guys who have us trussed up in an old warehouse without messing up a single hair on our head, and manage our personal lives with the casual cool of… well… someone who has the patent out on being casually cool.

Clearly, I’m running low on awesome metaphors today. I suppose that means I don’t qualify for Hollywood-style feminism. Which just happens to be my point: I’m usually a confident woman, but I do have my limits. There’s no way I can take on everything under the sun.

In writing her dark and twisted novels, including run-away bestseller “Gone Girl,” Gillian Flynn had this to say about how she portrays women: “Isn’t it time to acknowledge the ugly side? I’ve grown quite weary of the spunky heroines, brave rape victims [and] soul-searching fashionistas that stock so many books.”

While I still quite like my spunky heroines, I understand exactly what Flynn means: Women aren’t perfect. (Before you get all cocky, boys, neither are you.) So why try to depict us otherwise? What’s so wrong with just being human… capable of good, evil and mediocrity?

Now admittedly, with her superior faerie strength, Sabrina does have a physical edge on us non-winged women. And she also successfully handles a lot of psychological stuff in “To Err Is Faerie.”

But as any instructor at Langley will tell you, everyone has their breaking point. And I’m sure if they knew about faeries’ existence, they wouldn’t amend that statement one bit.

My writer’s philosophy is that fiction should reflect reality, even in the fantasy genre. Which is why Sabrina isn’t consistently kick-derriere throughout the Faerietales series. She falls, she breaks, and she needs help putting herself back together sometimes.

Because faerie or not, she’s still quite human in the sense that she’s mortal. Unlike Hollywood-style feminism.