So, I’ve been pretty much cruising with this whole ‘writing, shit yeah, I can write novels’ stuff for the past couple of months and then BANG! I hit book three of the trilogy, and come across the need to not only establish my romance and give it the Happily Ever After it deserves, but also to wind up the overarching storyline of the series.
So the words come. And they come. And they come. And I start to wonder why it was I thought I was any good at this.
No, that’s not true – I am still good. The book is good (although I’ve already identified some weak patches that hafta go baby!). It’s just that there’s a new challenge involved with this book, one that I’ve not faced before. When I first wrote these books they were a series – same world, shared characters, but no linking storyline. This is the first time I’ve every had to write the end of a three-book long story.
I’m trying to keep in mind that I can’t make things too easy for the characters – that after three books, the end of it all has to be satisfactory for the readers, they need to feel that the whole time they’ve been reading is worth it. I’m certainly not going for a HEA for the entire series – something mammoth has happened, and there will be long-lasting consequences. The world won’t be the same.
Yet there are elements of it all that are now relatively easy to deal with, and I’m wondering if that’s okay. Is it all right that after all this time, when they find the antagonist, locking them up and throwing away the key is a simple matter (mostly because of what happened in book two)? I mean, there’s still fall out from the antagonist’s actions, and the threat is still out there.
At the moment, things look like they’re going well, and all the problems are going to just be tidied up. But in the next chapter – bang, it all goes to shit again. Are readers going to be so disappointed with the way things seem to be going that they won’t keep reading? Or will the question ‘but what about x?’ be enough to keep them going?
I guess my beta readers are going to have to answer that one for me.
In the meantime, I keep writing, and watching the wordcount go up, and worry about whether I can bring this story in under the expected length.
The good news for this week has been the arrival of the cover for The Secret Ones, and let me tell you, it’s soooooo purty! I can’t believe that it looks so good. I mean, of course I expected a cover from a major publisher to look good (although with some of the furore over whitening of covers in the States, maybe I shouldn’t expect that) but I can’t believe that MY cover looks so nice. I mean, if I saw it in a bookstore, I’d pick it up and go ‘oooh, it’s sooooooo purty’.
Having said all that, when I can finally show you, you’ll probably all go ‘meh’. Well, do your worst! I LOVE my cover.