Messy Fiction

I am on the countdown to finishing Crimson Eve, third in the Kanner Lake series. About forty pages left, then one last read-through with some editing. Maybe four days of work.

I have never written a book quite like this. The end is messier than the beginning.

Oh, sure, the suspense plot will be solved. I don’t think readers would be satisfied if I left them hanging. But underlying that plot, this book is really about our past. And how our choices in the past can affect our future. Of course, the past is past, and we can’t change it. But we are creating a past every day by the choices we make in the present. And those choices direct what happens tomorrow.

The problem is, the repercussions of all the events in Crimson Eve are huge. A lot of people’s lives will be shockingly changed, inextricably intertwined. All this will cause major upheaval, months, even years of tears, of soul-searching and regrouping. Sounds like the beginning of a book, right? Nope, this is the resolution.

Well, there’s simply nothing to be done but tie up the suspense ends and leave the rest where it lies. I will infuse hope, of course. I really don’t care to become a darkly minded, existential writer. But there’s no way for this to be a happy, all-is-well ending. All is definitely not well.

But isn’t life like that. And really, that’s the point. That when the past raises an ugly head and bites the present, people suffer--many times people other than just ourselves. Answers and fixes don’t come easy. God can help us through, if we’re willing to let him, but we still face serious debts to pay.

When I was a teenager, a woman said a very wise thing to me: “God will forgive you, but nature won’t.” Nature’s not going to forgive my characters, either.

Sigh. Somehow I have to make this all work. To bring a satisfying conclusion to the suspense, yet depict life in its messy consequences without leaving the reader feeling cheated...

It’s going to be a long four days.