Murder and Happily Ever After

[Peg Herring]

I have a great quote from Scott Turow that I use in my mystery talks. To paraphrase, he says that the fictional courtroom is better than the real one in some ways, not the least of which is that justice is usually served. In real life, the courtroom often becomes a speech contest, a test of wills, a popularity platform, and/or an endurance test. While that may also be true in fiction for a while to keep the story going, there is at some point an ending where we know what really happened, and the perpetrator is punished.

The irony of good writing is that what readers want in a story is a mix of murder and happily ever after. We want realistic characters who face plausibly-outlined hurdles, but in the end we want them to succeed, at least on some level. If they don't overcome all their obstacles, that's all the better for the sequel, but as every agent will tell you, the book must stand alone, meaning things get tied up in a neat package that answers the reader's questions.

We know that in real life, problems are seldom solved neatly, often not solved at all. Sometimes it colors my enjoyment of fiction to ponder that, and I know others who feel the same way. At the end of GUYS & DOLLS, for example, who really believes that those four people have changed enough to actually live as two happily married couples? And at the end of FORREST GUMP, don't you foresee a time when the boy will be ashamed of his loving but lacking father?

Some have dealt with the silliness of "happily ever after," (think INTO THE WOODS or LOOK BACK IN ANGER), but for the most part, we would rather let it be, let fiction come to a satisfying if unbelievable conclusion. For the sake of enjoyment, then, I'll believe that Jim Rockford never suffers brain damage from all those concussions if you will.