So You Hate The End of Only Words?
I’ve got comments, letters, and [YES YAMS] real emails, from people who were not happy with the way Only Words ended. One reviewer at Amazon decided not only to spoil the ending in her review, but to tell us [me] how ’she would have done it’, via a suggestion on what I could’ve done with the ending…ah, those fans who love their HEA!
I found this blog post from Charlaine Harris, via SB-TB, where they highlighted an aspect of it about fans disliking the endings of books–and being angry with the writer about said ending. This happens in comics constantly–this anger at the writer-unit when a story or character’s fate doesn’t quite go with what you, as a reader, had in mind. I thought what Ms. Harris had to say was quite thought-provoking, from a writer’s perspective:
I know that readers have every right not to be happy with the way a book ends, or with the way characters meet their fate. But to be angry with the writer? The characters belong to the writer. [...] Certainly I’m not saying that writers are above criticism; certainly I’m not saying that you should buy a book by a writer in whom you no longer have faith. I’m saying that the writer is God, as far as the characters go. The writer’s decisions are final. That’s part of the connection the writer has with her world.
It’s my story. I’m sorry it disappointed many of you on the way it ended, but this is the way I chose to end it, despite what rules of popular BL are supposed to be, or despite what some authors tend to feel is a duty to their readers. :/
Now the ladies at SB-TB end their post with some damn good questions, one of them asking: Who do you think the characters truly belong to: the author? The readers? Both? Neither?
