Last night my husband and I decided to go out to dinner at
our all time favorite restaurant. Having a lull in our conversation, I decided
to bounce a few ideas off him for my current WIP. Not coming up with anything
new, I brought up his suggestion from a few days earlier of killing off my main
character at the end of the book.
Revisiting this topic, I told him it would never work. I
explained that in classic story telling, there NEEDED to be a more agreeable
ending.
To this he replied, “Make the ending in the next book more
agreeable.”
Even though I’ve never considered there being a “next book,”
I thought about it for a minute, shook my head no and said, “What next book? I
already killed everyone.”
It was then that the waitress who was serving a man seated directly behind my husband, stumbled and almost fell. As I tried to convince myself that it
was all a coincidence, I couldn’t help but notice that the man at the table was
now sitting very rigid.
Seeing my expression, my husband asked me what was wrong.
Letting the waitress finish up and walk away, I told him what had happened.
Just when I got to the part of repeating what I’d said about how I’d already killed
everyone, a waiter, who was now behind me, jerked his head up and looked our
direction.
Even though we had gotten very good service, up to that
point, the staff seemed to avoid our table for the rest of our meal.
Long story short, if you are a fiction writer, be VERY
careful when and where you decide to talk about your books, especially if they
involve murder. BTW, if you happen to be from the OKC area, could you recommend
a good Tex-Mex restaurant? Even though I’ve eaten at this one for 30 years, I’m
not sure I will be able to go back. J
