Comparison and disapointed

I know from drought to flood, I can't get my voice to cooperate.

After I finish writing. I usually take a few days weeks to read some books this time is no diferent. I didn't, however, expect the disapointment I recieved at about one last night.

I picked up two "romances" for reading enjoyment at the library.

One was a campy paranormal romance which I loved and literally laughed through the whole book. I can't wait to find the sequel and read it too. The characters were great, the setting unique, and the plot really good. I would read lines from the book to my teenage daughter and we would laugh together. I finished that book with a sense of satisfaction and went happily on my way.

The second one I picked up and read just yesterday, I loved the begining of the book although there were parts that were so predictable. I was actually asking myself why I hadn't read something of this authors before, they were that good. I loved how the author played on the stereotypes and made it work I also liked that the narrator talked to me as a reader intermittently. I was sucked into the book and stayed up after DH went to bed (A BIG NO NO IN MY HOUSE) to finish it. Then I get to the end and the two characters in the book who have had all this romantic tension and SHOULD get together in the end don't. I sat there in my kitchen at the table with a blank stare and felt SO BETRAYED! It felt bitter on my tongue and I have vowed never to read this author again because the betrayal was so huge in my eyes. I laid in bed for nearly an hour after that and wondered about the end of this book. I am sorely disapointed.

Now granted there are those of you who will probably pick this book up and love it. Either the story WITH the ending will grab you, or you will love it solely because of who wrote it.

I am begining to think about it this morning and I am realizing a few things.

First, is that this book was marketed wrong, if this is literary fiction/chic lit it was not billed that way. The jacket blurb does not tell you this is not a romance, it lied to me and I feel that sting.

Second, this author in my opinion made certain plot promises at the begining of the book. The author didn't fulfill them and the reader, ME, is feeling riped off. So much so that I will not read anything they write without a million glowing reports of the book.

I've learned this the hard way this year. You make your reader plot promises in that first chapter and you stick to them. Even if you as a writer half to decide what those plot promises are, write them down, and hang them above your desk so you see them everyday. The reader does not like to feel ripped off, or go to bed and hate what they just read.

You have a message to tell your readers? Great, decide what it is and stick with it. Your tale has a moral? Make sure you stay consistent with it. Granted characters have a mind of their own. I know, mine do too. Infact, that is why I am writing a nine book series instead of two books like I origonally planned. But there is this thing called revising and editing to reign in what your characters have done. If your characters change the book completely? Fine go back and change that plot promise in the begining so your not turning you reader on thier ear at the end.

As a writer you owe it to your reader to not leave a bitter taste in thier mouths as they close that back cover.