MURDER SHE WROTE....AND SHE HEARD ABOUT IT!

The picture at the left was taken at Walmart...you'll see my book on the "Bestseller's shelf" but my novel was only there a few minutes...just long enough to remove the book from my coat and take a snapshot.  :)  I figured when people ask if my book is at Walmart, I could say I saw it there once.  *lol*

I'm not mainstream material...I admit it.  I don't write to word requirements, and I hate the box your have to fit your story into.   I love small press because they allow you creative liberties you don't usually have, as long as you write it well.

 For a couple of years, I reviewed HQ medical romances...until I got totally sick of reading the same story with different names and locales.  Honestly...even if you write fiction, you have to use a little reality in your story.  I can't count how many times, I've read reviews that expressed their appreciation for the believability of the story.

So...I dare to write outside that stupid box.  Since I'm a pantser, my stories are all character driven, and when the hero or heroine stops talking, I stop writing.  I take the story as far as the character wants to go, and that's where it ends...whether it be 35,000 words or 95,000.

In Yellow Moon, one of my latest releases, I dared end with something other than the standard HEA.  Oh, if you look beyond, there is an HEA, just not the one expected.  A review I received gave me 4 stars.  She liked the romance, but didn't like the ending.  You can't please everyone, everytime.

NEWSFLASH!  I base my books on reality even though I write fiction.  I don't like stories tied into a neat little box, and I try to bring something a little different to the reading world.  What I've found?  Most readers want to escape their own lives, live in the shoes of a heroine or hero, and they aren't ready for the unexpected.  If you throw in a surprise ending, it upsets people, and they let you know it.  I guess Mainstream romance has taught folks to expect the hero to gallop in on a white stallion, rescue the damsel in distress, and ride off into the sunset together, to live a beautiful life, happily ever after.  Yuk!  Why can't he trample the heroine with the horse, pick up a secondary character and sweep her away to an expected future?  Okay...maybe  "trample" is a bit extreme, but you have to admit, you'd be surprised, and someone is living happily ever after, just not who you thought it would be.  To me, that's being creative.

Although my first instinct is to respond to those bitter reviews with "Write Your Own Book," I grit my teeth and move on.  I guess I'll never be as popular as those who write their stories to fit into tidy little boxes, but I enjoy being that different author.

Here's hoping there are some readers out there looking for me.  :)

If you are, you can find my books on Amazon.

"Way to go, Paula! Way to go!"

by Jamie Hill

"And they all lived happily ever after." I totally concur. I'm a nut for Disney movies, Hallmark movies, Lifetime movies...wherever I can find them, as long as they have a HEA (happily ever after) ending.

To sit through a movie for hours and have it end unsatisfactorily is a bummer for me. I want to see the couple get together in the end (if not sooner.) The bad guy should get his comeuppance, the mystery should be solved. Come on, people, don't leave me hanging. Those movies that end suddenly with a black screen and I have to ask my husband what the hell just happened... No thanks.

As a reader and lover of romance, of course I want the books I read to end HEA. When I started writing, before I knew many publishers wanted HEA, I wrote it anyway. It just felt right. First and foremost, I had to write what I liked to read.

(The big exception is when I write horror. Horror, I like to leave unsettled, hanging so you're wondering... huh? But that's a whole 'nother animal.) Romance, to me, needs HEA.

I don't mind HFN, though these acronyms are getting a little tedious. *LOL* HFN, or happy for now, is sometimes necessary. When I'm writing a short story that takes place over a matter of hours, it's not always feasible for the characters to fall in love. We settle for HFN, and know that they're going to give it their best shot and see what happens. Lots of movies end that way. We don't know for sure what's going to happen with the couple, but they're going to have fun trying to make it work for a while, anyway.

Two of my favorite movies have the best HEA endings. In An Officer and a Gentleman, when Richard Gere walks through the paper factory with the theme song pounding in the background, my heart melts. "Way to go, Paula! Way to go!"


 


In Pretty Woman, when Richard Gere (do you sense a theme?) climbs the fire escape to 'rescue' Julia Roberts, and she rescues him right back...sob. I could watch those endings over and over again.



My Blame Game series ends happily ever after. In fact, I follow the main couple's family for twenty years, and in the epilogue everyone gets their own HEA. If you like romantic happy endings as much as I do, I hope you check the series out!

Find all my titles at my publisher's website, Books We Love

http://bookswelove.net/authors/hill-jamie/