Egoyanesque

by Giselle Renarde

I didn't renew my opera subscription.  I'm just too poor this year.

An opera subscription sounds too decadent for a poor writer, and that's probably why I'm such an apologist  ("My seats are in the nosebleed section. When you break it down, I'm only paying like $20 per ticket.  You spend nearly that much to see a movie.") but I'm glad I had the opportunity, this season, to catch the COC's production of Salome directed by Atom Egoyan.

When I first started writing, I wanted to create work that felt... Egoyanesque?  Work that evoked that striking carnivalesque dreamscape of an Atom Egoyan film.

Like Lisabet, I came into the world of erotic fiction very naively.  And romance?  What's that?  I've still never read a heterosexual romance novel.  I tried once, just to get a feel for the form, but gave up pretty quickly.  I read a few lesbian romance novels, but they didn't speak to me either.  It seemed like lesbian couples were just superimposed on the tried-and-true form.

But I'm not a romantic, and I've already admitted that to you.  For a story to appeal to me, it's got to be pretty fucked up.  Have you seen Atom Egoyan's "The Sweet Hereafter," wherein Sarah Polley's character is sleeping with her father?  Or "Exotica," about a father seeking solace in a stripper following the murder of his child?  There's a special fucked-up-edness that is distinct to Egoyan's work.  I love it.  I perv on that brand of Canadian weirdness, and I wanted to replicate it in my own little way.

Amanda's post last week did a great job of spelling out why weirdness doesn't work.  Basically, the fucked-up crazy-ass shit I'd most like to write (and I think some of you are with me on this) is deemed unacceptable by most publishers in the erotic fiction genre.  It's all well and good to be Egoyanesque if you're writing literature, but if you want to work in this town, kid, you'd better keep it clean.

Isn't it weird that we have to sanitize our sex books? Crikey...

The first novel I wrote was a bisexual ballerina book called "Ondine."  Nobody would touch that manuscript.  It was too lesbian.  It was too strange, too full of lies and deception.  It was too this-that-and-the-other.  Too unhappy-ever-after.

One editor who passed on the novel gave me a whole list of insights, and I put her advice to work.  I turned a hetero subplot into a leading lady.  I changed the book so it ended in a proposal.  Happy-for-now is about the farthest I can roam from my desire for pain and suffering.  I write it because I have to.  It's almost always forced.  The only exception I can think of is a trans lesbian novella I wrote called "Friday Night Lipstick."  That one ends in a wedding scene that makes me cry every time I read it.

But, for the most part, I'd rather see despair, or watch characters drive themselves crazy doing things they shouldn't.  Case in point: I've got a novella called Adam and Sheree's Family Vacation coming out next week with eXcessica.  It's brother/sister incest--something I never considered writing until the plot came to me in an Egoyanesque dream state and took over my mind.  I couldn't not write it.  And how could Adam and Sheree ever see a happy-ever-after together?  They couldn't marry, even if they wanted to.

Thank goodness I have a publisher who believes in freedom of speech, or Adam and Sheree would probably never see the light of day.

So, HEA?  I don't often write it.  Maybe if I did, I'd be able to afford that opera subscription.  Opera loves the delicious, the titillating, the wicked, and the heart-wrenching.  And so do I.

The Next Chapter

I write erotica and erotic romance. With each genre, there is a slightly different expectation of the storyline, the graphicness of sexual content, and the ending.

With erotic romance, in contrast to romance, there is a decision to make when it comes time to end the story. There are options: happily ever after OR happy for now OR there is always the option of not going with a set HEA or HFN, but a sense of freedom and hope for the character. With romance, of course, you expect a HEA ending. That's it ... and if it isn't there, heaven help you when readers are done with you. ; )

For the most part, even though I write erotic romance rather than romance, I tend to stick with the HEA or HFN ending, even though I do sometimes wonder. What really happens next?

A friend of mine who was in a writer's group with me used to tease me, in a good natured friendly way, about reading romances. (His girlfriend read them too ... sometimes with him). And being a writer, he decided to imagine what would happen next, and he wrote a short story to follow the end of a romance novel. Basically, it took place twenty years after the end of a contemporary romance, where now the characters had sent their eldest off to college (because several romances involve a pregnancy), they had both gained weight, the husband had taken to watching TV and hanging with the guys, and the wife had taken to her own activities, inlcuding an affair to feel that spark of romance, of feeling wanted, again ... and the couple had grown apart.

Basically ... it showed a harsh reality that can happen without both parties continuing to keep the romance, the love, and the passion going.

I have had the accusation levels at me that reading romances and erotic romances, and writing erotica and erotic romances, is escapism. And you know what - it is! I can let myself and all my problems drift away temporarily when I emerse myself in the world the author has created, or the world I am creating. Which we sometimes need! But at the same time ... they give me a sense of what I need to do to keep my life from becoming that Next Chapter story my friend wrote.

I want my own HEA/HFN ending. And to that end, romances can show us to be open to gestures of romances, to communicate (because lack of it is often the issue in romances) and to do what is needed to keep the love from turning to a sense of purely contentness. Love takes WORK!

What worries me about romances ... is simply that some readers fall into the world the author has created and they loose touch with reality. That romances are fiction - reality, and love, takes work! Love isn't as condensed of a process that we often portray in our stories ... limited by word and page count. It isn't constant flowers, candy, and romanctic gestures. And I worry that some readers fall into the Cinderella fantasy that Prince Charming will sweep them off of their feet and everything will be perfect forever and ever. Love just doesn't work that way.

So while I work hard to stay true to my characters, and to give them a HEA/HFN, I also work to make sure I am keeping the romantic gestures realistic. And I don't write about princes and billionaires. I keep my characters as everyday people. (With one exception, and then the ending wasn't a normal HEA/HFN ending.) Yes there is romance, but gestures are within reason, within the ability of most readers.

I say bring on the romances! Erotic romances! Let us choose to read them, if we wish. Let us choose to write them HOW we wish. But at the end of the story, when the book has been closed, remember ... it is just a book. Take from it ideas to keep the fires burning at home, or to let yourself be open to finding love, but don't use them as a playbook. If I do this, then this will happen. Love just doesn't work that way ...

... but happily ever after is possible. It just takes work.

That's my 2cents on the topic anyways. Who knows, I could be wrong. Been known to happen. : )

Kicking and Screaming

By Lisabet Sarai

Let me say right off that I have nothing against happy endings, if they're right for the book. My first three novels end happily, with plenty of sexual satisfaction and the intimation of more to come, possibly even in the shape of - gasp - marriage (although non-traditional in every case). On the other hand, my fourth novel Exposure has a far more ambiguous conclusion. The heroine has lost everything she owned. She's torn between two relationships, neither of which is completely what she wants. Her future is a huge question mark.

Personally, I really liked that ending. However, I had a tough time getting that book published, and it hasn't sold all that well. Meanwhile, over the past three years I've been drawn deeper into the world of erotic romance, where a happy ending ("HEA", i.e. Happily Ever After, or at least "HFN", Happy For Now) is the single most important requirement of both readers and publishers. These days, romance can be sweet or steamy, with any mix of genders and quite a level of flexibility in numbers, but the story must conclude with the protagonists in love and together for the foreseeable future. And I'll admit, sometimes I find it difficult to deliver the sort of HEA that readers want.

Before I began writing romance, I really hadn't read any of the genre, the one major exception being Daphne DuMaurier's delicious Frenchman's Creek. The stories I've always considered the most romantic - Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, The English Patient - have tragic or painful conclusions. Meanwhile, sexual relationships are so often fraught with conflict - even if it's something as simple A desires B but is married to C - that not-so-happy endings are far easier to imagine than happy ones where everyone gets what he or she wants.

So, sometimes I find I have to drag my characters, kicking and screaming, to the rosy resolution that readers seem to crave. Even worse, sometimes the constraint that all must end well limits my story ideas in the first place. I'll throw away a perfectly usable premise or set of characters because, honestly, I can't imagine a happy finish.

Some of you might be shaking your heads, thinking, "So why the heck does she keep trying to write romance? Why doesn't she go back to her first love, erotica?"

First of all, the romance publishing world offers some things that are hard to come by in erotica: a plethora of publishers, a huge pool of potential readers and many opportunities to interact with them, and yes, money. More seriously, I see signs that happy-ending-ism has infected the erotica publishing world as well. More and more calls for short story anthologies are looking for "romantic erotica". Others explicitly say that they do not want "dark themes". There are fringe publishers who will look at such work, but the mainstream erotica publishers (if one can use this term without snickering) seem to seeking fantasy-generating material, where everyone orgasms and even more sex looms on the horizon. Unhappiness, darkness, even serious ambiguity, threaten the post-climactic glow.

Obviously I'm generalizing here (and every generalization can be attacked). One could also claim that my complaints are the result of sour grapes. I recently had a story rejected, a story that I wrote specifically for a particular call from a well-known editor working with a well-known publisher. I may be wrong, but I strongly suspect that the ending of this tale was the main reason for its rejection. The story concludes with the woman leaving her husband of thirty years for a man she has just met. The ending is right for the story; I'm quite confident of that, although I wavered as to whether I was brave enough to write it. It's not a happily ever after, though, certainly not for the abandoned husband and probably not for the woman either. No matter how fulfilling her relationship with her new lover may be, she'll always have doubts and possibly regrets. Not HEA material.

In short stories, especially, I'm drawn to the unresolved. The very first short story I published, "Glass House", ends with the following:

Still, I am not thinking. I do not dare. Mechanically, I gather my clothing and make myself as presentable as I can. I turn off the light as I leave, and stiffly navigate the spiral stairs, every step reminding me of my exquisite violation.

On the sidewalk, I wonder where I should go. The city is foreign and strange. I am fragile and lost, but not, as I had imagined, empty.

There is something in my pocket: the delicate glass unicorn Lukaš gave me. The horn has broken off, but it is still a lovely thing.

I do not know what will happen next. But I sense that something will shatter.

This is the way of real relationships. We meet and couple with strangers, then say goodbye. We discover, sometimes, that even our long-time lovers have dark sides we've never seen. We desire multiple futures, with multiple people, and are forced to choose only one. Love and sexual communion are both peak experiences, to be celebrated in fiction as well as in life. However, the intricacies of desire thwarted, the bittersweet pangs of longing for what might have been, the bite of envy and the sting of rejection, are equally worthy to be chronicled in our stories.

Then I remember my deadlines and drag my imagination, kicking and screaming, back to the task of making my characters happy.

How happily ever after completely ruins the story

by Helen E. H. Madden

I am not a big fan of happy endings. Or rather I should say I am not a big fan of publishers who only accept and publish stories with a happily-ever-after (HEA)ending. I don't even like it when they say they'll accept happily-ever-after-for-now (HEAFN). It's like these publishers think there's sometthing wrong with a perfectly good tragedy. Hello? Have you not heard of Romeo and Juliet, written by this guy called Shakespeare? It's kind of popular...

So I don't care for a publishing house that only wants the happy stuff. That's not to say I think all stories should end in tragedy. But I do think the happiest ending for any story is the ending that actually works best for a story, regardless of whether that ending is happy or not.

I once spent ten weeks struggling to write a story. I would get about 20 pages into the tale, and slowly run out of things to say. It was because I didn't know how to end the story. I was shooting for a happy ending, one where the guy gets... well, the other guy (yeah, it was a m/m sort of thing). Every time I tried to write though, I could never get past page 20. I wrote and rewrote and re-rewrote those first 20 pages so many times I thought I was going to be sick. Then finally one day I sat down with my trusty ballpoint pen and my notebook and I determined that I would figure out how the story ended by the end of that day or I'd give up entirely and move on to something else.

It only took me twenty minutes of scribbling to realize that the reason I couldn't finish the story was because I was so damned insistent on that happy endinig. It was sort of an "A-ha!" moment, where I was throwing down all possible endings onto the paper, including the ones I thought I knew wouldn't work. The "A-ha!" came when I wrote, "So-and-so dies..."

A-ha. A-HA! Someone dies! Suddenly, the entire story crystalized around that point. Knowing that the story would not have a happy ending changed everything. I threw out all previous drafts of the story and began typing in earnest. By the end of two weeks, I had written what I still consider to be the best (though sadly, still unpublished) story of my life. It was complex, moving, hot, and so forbidden.

And in the end, nobody in that tale lived happily ever after.

It was the right ending for that story, and since then, I've learned that whenever I'm having problems writing a tale, it's usually because I don't understand the ending. It's not enough to say, "I'm going to have a happy (or tragic) ending." I have to understand the ending in order to make it come about. Here are a few rules I've learned since that first painful incident that may help you write your own fitting endings.

Rule #1 - the ending must flow naturally from the events occuring in the story. Deus Ex Machina is the worst way to end a story. It's a big fat cheat in my opinion, and it's just as bad as the old "it was all a dream" kind of ending. When you write your story, you arm your character at the very beginning with the things they will need to survive the challenges ahead - wits, bravery, a killer punch, the ability to perform magic, etc. These are the tools they use to tackle the problems you throw their way. They can always discover or develop new tools as they progress through the story, but don't ever, EVER let some random act of fate (or some random all powerful being) step in and save your hero's bacon. It's a cheat, and as a writer you can do better than that.

Rule #2 - Endings need to show the consequences of the characters' actions, both for themselves and others. Characters will make all kinds of decisions and perform all kinds of deeds, both good and bad, in a story. Just as they should reap the benefits from their good actions, they should also suffer the consequences of their bad actions. And if not them, then someone else in the story should. Actions and decisions have consequences, and those consequences can make for damned interesting story endings. Let things come back to haunt your heroes, no matter how great they are or how much you love them. Need a good example? How about Frodo Baggins from Lord of the Rings? (SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK STOP READING HERE) Some readers complain that it's not fair that Frodo suffers so much after all he does to save the world. The wounds he receives during his quest to destroy the One Ring force him to abandon his beloved Bag End and sail into the West where he can finally be healed. Sucks, don't it? Frodo was such a great guy, he did such heroic deeds! It's not at all fair that he has to give up everything he cares about after all he's done. But consider that a true hero is someone who makes a sacrifice, and Frodo knew he might have to give up everything he loved to save it. His sacrifice, therefore, is appropriate to the story. (And if you really want to see consequences in action, read the appendices at the end of Return of the King. What happens to Arwen Undomiel is heartbreaking, to say the least, but again, a natural consequence of her decision to remain in the mortal world.)

Rule #3 - All problems don't have to be solved by the end of the story. In an HEA story, the problems encountered in the plot are resolved so that everyone is pleased with the results (well, everyone good is pleased; the villains are usually not so happy, but then villains don't get HEAs, do they?). When problems aren't solved, in spite of the characters actions (or else are made worse because of the characters actions), then you have a tragedy. Recall that Shakespear guy again. In Romeo and Juliet, the main character's biggest problem is how to be together even though their families are mortal enemies. Unfortunately, things go awry and they can't solve that problem. And yet in spite of this, Romeo and Juliet are pointed to as one of the greatest, most romantic love stories of all time. When a story ends with only part of the problems solved, or at least ends with the characters accepting that their problems can't be solved, that's good too. Ever watch Little Miss Sunshine? I tell ya, nobody gets what they want at the end of that movie, but everyone realizes they're going to be okay.

Rule #4 - Don't assume that having sex means your characters must also have a HEA or HEAFN. All too often, I see stories in erotica and erotic romance that seem to imply that by having sex, two (or more) characters end up developing some deep spiritual bond that will allow them to overcome any obstacle in their path. NOT. Sometimes people have sex with people they shouldn't. Sometimes making love is making a mistake! And besides, wouldn't it be far more interesting to see how a relationship falls apart after the characters have sex, rather than just assume they're going to be together forever because they've done the nasty? Think about it.

Rule #5 - The last one I've got folks, and perhaps the most important. The best story endings don't really end the story. These are the endings that hook the reader into imagining how life might play out after the last page is turned. Yes, endings should provide answers, but they should also leave just enough questions in the mind of the reader to keep them wondering about your story late into the night. This little trick is accomplished by ending the story at the right moment. Think of Frank Stockton's The Lady or the Tiger. We have no idea how this story really ends, because of where the tale cuts off. But it makes things so much more intriguing, forcing us to contemplate the motivations of the Barbarian Princess and her lover's willingness to trust her decision. I wrote a story like this one, finishing the story before the final key moment where a character must make a decision. One reader came back and chewed me out for it. But everyone else loved it. They loved not knowing how things turned out, and they pondered the ending for themselves for a long time. Something similar to this happens in my all-time favorite chick flick, Thelma and Louise. We never actually see the Thunderbird land, do we? We only see that final image of a photo fluttering to the ground, showing the grinning faces of two friends who were willing to stick together no matter what. It's the perfect moment, the perfect ending to their wild ride, and it's both happy and sad.

So keep these things in mind the next time you sit down to write a story. Pick the right ending for your story, the one that matters most to your characters and to you, and thumb your nose at all those guidelines that insist you write a HEA. You'll get your own HEA when you write a story that turns out ot be your very best.

And now here are a few samples of my not-so-happily-ever-afters:

Swingers - a circus aerialist falls in love with two men, but will jealousy end more than just her love life?

The Unfair Maidens - a not so noble knight must deal with the consequences of his conquests.

And they all lives hopefully ever after...

By Kim Dare.

I look at happy endings from two different points of view.

Firstly as a reader…

I hate reading sad endings. I’m not just talking about romances. I don’t approve of unhappy endings in any genre. The only author who I’ll accept an unhappy ending from is Shakespeare – and that’s because I read them for the language rather than the plot.

For everyone that isn’t Shakespeare, the ending has to be happy. Or, to be more accurate, it has to be hopeful. If I want to be depressed I’ll watch the news.

There’s more than enough to get upset over in the real world. If an author has gone to the trouble to create a fictional world peopled by fictional characters, I really don’t get why they wouldn’t want to make it better than our real world. I’m not saying bad things shouldn’t happen. I don’t object to a little bit of reality in my fiction. Make me cry in the middle by all means – but when I reach the last page and close the book – I want to have hope.

Yes, I know there are terrible things happen in the world. Yes, there are often terrible things happening on our own doorsteps. But given the choice I want to read something that makes me believe that the light at the end of the tunnel is something better than an oncoming train.

It’s not so much escapism as it’s a desire to be reminded of the good things and good people that often pass unnoticed and uncommented upon in the midst of all the trouble in the real world - a desire to dwell on the nice bits of peoples lives that don’t get reported in papers.

In my opinion, fiction like all other art forms, should lift spirits rather than crush them, it should inspire hope rather than despair. That’s its reason for existing, that’s its job.

From a writer’s point of view…

I have a job to do too.

Before I go any further, I want to make it quite clear that I do realise the fictional characters in my books are indeed fictional characters. I am aware that on a strictly technical level they don’t exist.

That said…

I have a deal with my characters.

People turn up inside my head. They tell me their story so far. Sometimes they are happy stories, sometimes they are quite the opposite.

But, whatever’s happened in their past, from then on its my job to get them to a happy ending. I introduce them to another character (or sometimes a few characters – but more about ménages in a few weeks time) and I write down what it would take for those characters to find the happy ending that they need together. That’s what writing is all about for me.

Sometimes the characters have to go through a few different versions of hell before they find that happiness. No one said finding a happy ending is easy! Some characters don’t arrive ready to leap straight into the ending. That’s why I promise the characters a happy ending, not necessarily a universally happy journey towards it.

But by the end of it all, I expect characters wounds to begin to heal heal. Their faith in humanity, love and the world in general should be restored. They ought to find the other half of themselves. They should discover that the world is more than the doom and gloom always preached on the news.

Okay, all that doesn’t happen in every story.

Sometimes it’s as simple as two people who don’t actually have much to angst over discovering that they’ll be finding their happy ending with someone unexpected. Sometimes the characters are reasonably happy to start with. Sometimes it’s nice to write about people who not only have happy endings but have happy lives in general – light hearted feel good books that don’t dwell on too much any sort of angst.

But at the same time, I will admit that I have a soft spot for characters that have been severely put through the ringer by life before they arrive in one of my books. Maybe that’s because they are the characters who need a happy ending the most, maybe it’s because they represent something of the tragic real world stories that I can’t get out of my head until I’ve written a happy ending for someone who found themselves in that situation.

I can’t change the whole world (although I’m far from giving up trying) I can’t give everyone in the real world the happy ending I believe everyone deserves.

But in my little world, in the world that exists in my books. I can do that. I can make sure every single character who deserves a happy ending gets exactly what they need. That's a good feeling and maybe it’s part of the reason I write, to remind myself as well as the characters that there is hope.

As a writer and as a reader, as you might have guessed, happy endings are very important to me.

Happy endings and hopeful endings – long may they thrive.

Kim Dare.
Kink, love and a happy ending. Do you Dare?

I'd be happy to....

Happily ever after endings sometimes fit and I adore when they work and make sense. I have to admit though that I enjoy a less than happy ending at times. When writing romance, or erotic romance, readers expect the HEA and an author is obligated to supply it. Don't and you risk losing readers, possibly permanently.

HFN, or happy for now, also works a lot of the time. Again, I'm all for it, when the story goes that way and the characters need that kind of ending.

Okay, get your rotten tomatoes and other assorted tossables. *G* I've written a few stories where the ending isn't really clear. Usually, when I get an idea for a book or story, I know how it's going to end. I may not have the complete story line or plot, but I know Jane is going to rescue Joe from the kidnappers and they'll live happily ever after, or not. There are some stories that simply don't have that clear cut an ending. There are times when the characters don't deserve happy endings. Heck, I've written a few pieces where the characters die horribly and deserve every moment of their torment. *G*

And what about the character who doesn't want happy? Joe Shmuck murders someone and is haunted by the ghost. Joe has a love interest, a nice job and all the trimmings. But, deep down inside, poor Joe wants this ghostie to scare the pants off him. Maybe literally. LOL Say Joe is slipping it to his wife and ghostie whispers something naughty into Joe's ear. Scares him spitless and his wife must know somethings up... errr down... and Joe is happy as a clam. He's paying for the deadly deed but can still take care of his family. Okay, so maybe that wasn't the nicest of scenarios, but life isn't always nice. Right?

Romance is escapism and thus the happily ever after. Apparently it's doing extremely well right now too, and that can't be a bad thing. I think if a book is clearly marked romance, a reader has every right to be upset if a HEA isn't supplied. You really want what you're paying for and an unhappy reader is an scary thing... gulp!

What's your take on how a book ends? Do you think the good guy should always win and the mystery solved or is there room for the not quite answered questions to leave you wondering? Perhaps that ghost really isn't finished with Joe. Perhaps Joe's wife is going to get into the act later.

Please Welcome AURORA ROSE LYNN

We'd like to welcome Aurora Rose Lynn to the blog today. Thanks for stopping by Aurora!

Why does a reader crave a happy ending in a romance? And what makes for a happily ever after ending?

Even though I’m an author of romance and erotic romance, and am supposed to know about those miracle happy endings, my personal experience, up to about ten years ago, was romance (usually THE END part) equates with hurt feelings and a sense of wanting more. I’d ask, “Wanting more of what?” The answer came to me after I read a Diana Palmer novel, and spent the whole afternoon crying. Why couldn’t I have a love story like that? I’ve never forgotten that book, and once I had my ‘happily ever after’ ending, I started to enjoy romance.

I read and read - everything from Harlequin to single title romance, although I’d rarely read romance before 2000, and tended to focus on fantasy, science fiction, and mystery. The first novel I wrote was a hard-boiled private eye novel which won an Honorable Mention. How cool is that?

In 2001, I decided to write an erotic romance and was immediately faced with what comes between the beginning where the hero and heroine meet each other and the end where the pair are supposed to live happily ever after? I mean, I’m looking around me at the couples I know, and very few of them are living that happy ever after ending. They’re squabbling continually about petty things like finances and more important things like ‘who’s going to get the kids for the weekend?’ Yeah, sadly, there’s divorce in there. Not a happy ending, is it?

With the characters in my novels, I get to choose their circumstances, how incompatible the sexy hero and swooning heroine are, and the events that will lead them gradually closer to each other, physically and emotionally, although in erotic romance the physical part is very important. (You know the kind where the hero and heroine make love to each other? ) Often the road to getting the hero and heroine to a happy ending is a bumpy ride. But the reader pretty much demands an ending that will satisfy them, and so the ride is well worth it.

I look at the characters first. Usually they’re male and female, although I have a novel in progress that has two males and a female. We all have a quirk in our make-up that often leads to problems with others. Me, I’m very independent, and my heroines usually are too. If she meets with an alpha male, then there is war in the happenings! Two independent people can’t have a happily ever after ending, can they? But that’s the whole fun about writing erotic romance. The characters make love to each other and fundamentally, both change as they learn about the other. In my upcoming novella, Fantasies, due to be released by Total-E-Bound on December 15, I have two couples who are both trying to find their way with not only the world at large, and themselves, but with each other. The journey takes place in a Christmas setting and as Hanna and Carla make their journey of self-discovery, they must also battle with a problem that many face in their quest for love. Is an older man or woman the right partner for a younger one? What challenges do they face if they decide marriage or staying together is a long-term option? I had fun writing Fantasies and made certain that Carla and Hanna, the mother and daughter looking for love, found it in an unexpected man. And there it is, a happy ending in the making!

Aurora Rose Lynn
http://www.auroraroselynn.net

Happily Ever After

When it comes to books and movies, Brynn Paulin has one rule: there must be a happy ending. After that one requirement, anything goes. And it just might in her books.

That’s a clip from my author bio and it’s absolutely true. I believe in happy endings, and I prefer happily ever after endings. Actually, I have a very strong opinion about them. Let’s face it, there’s enough bad stuff going around in the world without me writing an ending that leaves the characters with more horror, sorrow or hardship. As a romance author, I feel that I owe it to my reader to deliver the goods—the warm fuzzy goods. It’s part of the “contract”. Romantic books are adult fairytales. Romance + Hero + Heroine = HEA.

HEA stands for Happily Ever After. In my books, that’s what you’re going to find. HEA. There’s a trend right now for a new ending “Happy for Now”. In many cases, happy for now, in my opinion, is a copout and a betrayal and a little too much like the wishy-washy society we live in that perpetuates the “if you’re not happy, move on” philosophy. There is no permanence or stability.

I have to agree with the commenter yesterday who mentioned honesty in the ending. I’m not advocating a deus ex machina, suddenly all is well and the choirs sing ending. While the characters in a book should experience trials and emotional upheaval, a book should be written with a slant toward getting to the HEA. When you get there, it’s not a surprise though no one could predict the path. It makes sense to get to the HEA. It has to make sense. The “Poof! And they kiss and declare undying love even though they hated each other with unmitigated passion one paragraph ago” kind of stories really irritate me. I wonder, did you run out of words? Did you just get tired of writing the book? Did you not notice what was happening here?

Opinionated? Me? No…

Do I think that the characters in a HEA ending will never face a trial or unhappiness again? No. I don’t think they’re going to live in some romantic utopia where nothing goes wrong, but when THE END comes around, I know that the hero and heroine are united. They will face anything else that happens in their lives as a unit. They are each other’s strength and comfort.

Yes, I think beyond the last page while I’m writing. I can’t be the only author who does that. I often think of many “but what if this happens?” scenarios while I’m writing. Will the connection I’m creating stand up to adversity? If it doesn’t pass my test, I rework things. It helps to fireproof your characters so to speak.

I guess I have to backtrack here for a sec… That happy for now ending. Sometimes it’s necessary. If the characters meet and the romance takes place over the course of a day and/or the emotional connection between them can’t be realistically developed then happy for now has to happen in order to ring true. I believe in love at first sight and soul mates. Quick connections can happen in my realm of experience, but you have to be uber-careful in writing it.

Honestly, this topic is so important to me that I could go on forever. But, I won’t. I’ll end with two reiterations:

1. Romance + Hero + Heroine = HEA

2. Brynn Paulin + Book = HEA

It’s just the way it is.