Horror Novels, Endings

I don't read many horror novels, though, of course, I have read some of Stephen King's. But I have a daily quote I subscribe to and today's was:

"Anybody could write a horror story if you didn't have to end it." Dan Curtis

Since I don't know the genre, I didn't know that the ending should foreshadow that the Big Nasty the characters had been battling the entire book is Not Quite Dead and Will Return. (I didn't know this about the movies, either).

I am a Happily Ever After girl, I want the thing done and gone and dead dead dead and the characters to be rewarded for great effort. If i didn't want that, I'd have killed off more folk in Echoes In The Dark. I've seen reviews that Echoes was "unrealistic" in that too many people lived.

I THOUGHT I'd set up that with a whole planet on your side, there would be magic and power to heal even the worst of wounds...and if I didn't, then that's my fault, I needed to add another few bits here and there.

...and I had no idea that this blog was going to turn out this way!....I meant to talk about horror. One of the hallmarks of horror is that the Big Nasty does not die, and, like I said, the return is foreshadowed.

Rather like: And as Raine and the survivors sailed away from Glassy Island, deep in the smallest crack in the smallest crevice, curled around a lost finger bone, a tendril of dark stirred......

So, that's that, and pretty much all I know of the horror genre.

May you laugh and laugh today.
Robin

Book Endings

I know I've said these are very important, and one of my (old) favorite writers could never nail the ending. It was as if she wrote most of the book and rand out of time and ended it in a paragraph or two. Even as a reader I hated that.

And I've also said that I write out of order. Don't know if I told you all, but Heart Dance's, Protector of the Flight's, and Echoes In the Dark's ending were all written and saved as separate scenes, chapters.

Sometimes easier to write climactic bits! Echoes In the Dark's ending battle had to be crafted well (and I hope I did that) and make sense, especially going back and forth between the men and the women. I think I revised those scenes upward of five/six times.

Well, the ending of Heart Change came to me this morning as I was laying in bed after I woke. I knew what I wanted to do, but didn't know how I was going to do it. Ok, I wanted to separate Cratag and Signet at a vital moment and the event needed to have certain pre-requisites. This morning I got the idea and I'm pretty sure I can make it work.

So I'm pleased though I've been researching and haven't written a word other than this, haven't done anything but feed the cats (who are not happy with their venison).

May you be inspired today.
Robin