Hit me right in the #feels #writing

So the past few days have been great for feedback for The Spark That Left Us.

 

Two different people contacted me to say, “hey, love what you did, and the ending absolutely killed me (how could you?!)” 

And to be perfectly honest, that made me feel good. To do what wasn’t expected, and also – that they felt invested enough in the characters to tell me off for my (admittedly) evil deeds. It’s hard to spend so much time, so many hours, with characters that are essentially, born, raised, and killed inside your own head. I’ve always been an avid reader and I always disassociated the writer with the novel. But I’ve now experienced that it isn’t so true as you might think. Your heart breaks for what you put them through, despite the fact that they aren’t real. But they’re real enough to you. You’ve fabricated an entire existence that never existed. If you think hard enough, you know every little detail about them, you know them better than anyone else, so it feels interesting when others pick up on that. They fall in love with these people too. And they’re just as crushed when something horrible happens.

It’s an interesting sensation.

A third person also confessed to have started, and to admit that “there’s something real dark there, I wasn’t expecting it!”.

Again, there’s that phrasing – I wasn’t expecting it.

And makes me wonder, if they didn’t know me – would they have expected it? As an author, am I fooling the reader – or fooling those who know me?

And there’s a question for me to study on, and as I collect more information, I’ll let you know.

 

Thanks again!