Rebecca--Unless I'm reading an Agatha Christie book, it really bothers me to have a villain explaining the whole scenario at the end. It seems unnatural. (And hey, let's face it, real bad guys don't usually spill everything when they're caught. They say, "Hey, I didn't do anything," even if the smoking gun is still in their hand. Or they say, "I want my lawyer, now.")
As a writer, I try to reveal as much of the puzzle as I can in bits and pieces along the way, so that when the ultimate bad guy is caught, he doesn't have to go into a long monologue--but maybe he can provide that one final piece of the puzzle that allows everything else to click into place.
Kara Lennox
BOUNTY HUNTER HONOR, Harlequin Intrigue, June 2005
www.karalennox.com
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Yeah, I'd much rather not know the motivations sometimes then have it all dumped at the end. Little hints along the way are the best.
ReplyDeleteYes, but suppose a major plot element is that the villain arranged to trick the heroine into leading the hero to a location where he can kill him. She thinks she has perfectly legitimate reasons for doing what she does. Then she finds out that she's been masterfully manipulated. I can't explain any of it as I go along because then the horror of the ending is spoiled. When the villain tells the heroine what she's done for him--she's destroyed. If I let the reader in on the secret before the end, then the impact goes away.
ReplyDeleteI said it's at "the end." It's about fifty pages before the end--because then the heroine has to redeem herself, and she and the hero have to get out of the trap the bad guy laid.
I don't want the reader to know what's really going on while she reads the book. When she finds out what the bad guy has done, I want the reader to be able to go back to each major event and say--yeah, I get it now.
Oh well,
Rebecca
Rebecca--
ReplyDeleteThat sounds perfectly okay to me. Some explanation doesn't bother me.
where can i get more info?
ReplyDelete