From the Fiction Desk

You have plotted out a story. Your characters are well thought out, three dimensional, with separate personalities. They have driven your story and everything looks good—until there comes a scene you are convinced you must have. The characters do not want to do this scene. In order to force them you have to move them as mental chess pieces on the board. Would you do it?

In my early writings I did. It was a big mistake that I didn’t realize back then. It would be years before I realized how big of a mistake it was, and then only when I read another writer making it. The lesson came to me while reading a novel written by a contemporary novelist who had written one of my favorite all time horror novels. I am not going to reveal the novel or the author—I am not going to critique the novel. I am focusing on what the author did and my reaction as a reader.

It is fascinating to think back to when I read this novel and realize that I would not have learned the lesson if I had listened to another reader’s advice, “Don’t read the epilogue.” I had spent days reading the novel, following a character who was a strong self-made man. You could imagine this character growing up on the streets and making himself into a great success. In the final chapter of the book, he fights with the antagonist in a life and death struggle. The chapter ends with a “fade to black,” leaving the reader to wonder what had happened.

How could I not read the epilogue? I wanted to know what had happened. My heart was racing after the final scene. I blindly ignored the other reader’s advice and read on. I wish to this day, over 17 years later, that I had not. In the epilogue, the character is recovering from the fight and a personal loss of a loved one. Of course, I realize the character is to seem broken and crushed by the experience. Instead of showing a broken man, the author chose to show a man who has gone from being this ultra-strong character to being one of the world’s greatest whiners.

To help my reader understand, allow me to use an archetype character: Superman. Imagine if you would, this great “man of steal” suddenly, after a great loss turning into the proverbial underweight nerd on the beach who will let muscle men kick sand in his face. The change in character seemed forced—instead of broken, the character seemed to be a puppet of the author in a failed attempt to show the misery the character felt.

Of course, this is all my interpretation of the work. The result of the me reading the epilogue and the way I felt afterwards resulted in me not reading another book by this author for fifteen years—and then with trepidation. It was a lesson I hope and pray that my muse has learned well.

Thank you for reading. Please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more information on the blogs, short stories, and novels that I write. Soon, a new category will be added.