Fairy Tale Endings

I like a good fairy tale ending as much as the next person. I do. When done right, answering the whole will they/won’t they find love question with a resounding YES! is wonderful and uplifting.

However, it has to feel real.

I just finished reading a book told from both love interests’ points of view where Dude #1 is hot and cold about the relationship the whole time, and Dude #2, while trying not to fall in love, is falling in love the whole time.

To be fair, this is like Drexel and Robbie in Breaking All the Rules. Maybe because I’ve written this story (and only from Drexel’s PoV), this version doesn’t seem real.

When I say Dude #1 is hot and cold, he’s master-manipulator-sociopath hot and cold. Each person brings their own backstory to a novel, and in this case, I dated that, I lived that, I almost died because of that.

When he makes the grand gesture after the “dark moment of the soul,” presenting the main character with an award, giving a speech in front of a packed house, and making out with him on stage (they’re both professionals – this would never happen in real life), I can’t help but wonder how long it will last. Is this Happily Ever After (HEA), or just Happy for Now? It’s not the satisfying ending I hoped for.

It’s hard to take my personal experience out of the equation. I’m sure many people walked away from this book thinking it’s light and fluffy and HEA, but I can’t.

The feels I have right now are going to make it hard to write my light and fluffy romance today. This angst is better suited to writing YA Romance, so I might switch over to that until I feel more like myself.