I wrestle with this idea. I’m currently working on the ending (which with me can mean I still have hundreds of pages to write) of The Navigator’s Children, book three of the current Osten Ard story. I’m always trying to balance what I know readers want—resolution, and at least some version of a happy ending—with the desire to keep things realistic, which means balancing the good with the bad.

“Hollywood ending” has a negative connotation, because it suggests that whatever has happened, everything’s going to turn out okay, almost by rote. But there’s also a meaning of the phrase that, to me at least, promises that you’re going to get a resolution of an appropriate size to go with the rest of the story.

I’m a big believer in this. After all, I’m writing in a form (or sub-genre) of fantastic fiction that is almost always about huge, cataclysmic history, wars and events with deep roots in the local folklore, and dangerous powers that are far above the strength of most of the individual characters. I can’t finish something like that without fireworks—or, as I prefer to say, “blowing things up”.

And I seriously don’t believe in writing a long story that (I hope) causes my readers to become invested in a lot of characters, but not give those readers an appropriate pay-off for that investment. That means I can’t just phase out secondary characters. Their story-arc has to have an ending commensurate with time spent with them, and it should have some meaning and connection to the story as a whole.

So if you call any big ending where a lot of things happen, where stuff blows up and the character- and plot-lines all come together, a “Hollywood ending”, I guess I’m guilty.

But for me this is also the fun of being a storyteller. If I couldn’t do this—manipulate grand plots with huge set-pieces and many excitement-packed scenes of heroism and terror and struggle, leading to a slam-bang finale full of surprises and tragedy (and sometimes joy)—then I wouldn’t want to be writing big.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s hard as hell sometimes, but I do like big books. They’re different than shorter novels. Long works create a life of their own and lead to things happening—both plots and characters—that I can never predict ahead of time, which—especially for a writer as conscious and architectural as me—is an amazing, mind-blowing experience I wouldn’t want to give up.

So, The Navigator’s Children almost certainly has what some consider a Hollywood ending. Stuff blows up—okay, lots of stuff. Unexpected twists and turns happen right up to the last page. Characters die, including some who do not deserve to, and others live, even those the readers would be happier seeing dead after long suffering.

And I hope that when the whole ride is over, readers will shut the book and say, “Man, that’s how to finish a big story!”

We’ll see. In the meantime, Happy New Year and thanks for staying in touch with us ——

Tad

Note from Deb: Tad will deliver the manuscript to DAW Books in the next few months. Some time this year, we’ll send you the foreword; it was published in the 2019 World Fantasy Convention book last fall, and we want to get it out soon to all of you on the list. Cheers, m’dears.

p.s. We’re hoping for a 2021 publishing date, but we don’t know yet…

p.p.s. Ooh! In 2019 I wrote the first draft of The Heirs of Ordinary Farm—the number 3 book in the ‘Ordinary Farm’ series. It’s sitting on Tad’s desktop, I am waiting for him to do his draft on top of it. We think that’s next, straight after The Navigator’s Children. Finally collaboration got to be fun not bloody.

We had a blast, and not a broken nose between us ; )