Fans, it turns out have expectations. I guess I’ve always suspected it, but in a series they mount and get bigger than I realized when I started Bound three and a half years ago. As a reader I’ve always had expectations going into what I knew would be last books in series. Some have been met, and in other series dashed and I left the series feeling a deep sense of loss, like I’d been cheated. I should have put two and two together and realized with Bound my fans would have those same damn expectations.
Over the last two months of writing what is probably the final Bound book, I’ve been thinking a little bit about expectations, making sure everything was wrapped up to at least a happy for now point to give the fans some closure. But it didn’t really hit me until I was having a conversation with one of my betas and she brought up a ship she was hoping to see in book five. It blew me away. The ship hadn’t occurred to me, and without giving any spoilers for the book, I can tell you she swore up and down I’d been planning it all along.
I will fully admit I had no plans for the ship. After she said it, I could see what she meant, and the clues she’d taken, but it just hadn’t occurred to me. Seeing her expectations made me really stop to think. How many other people will be disappointed like I have been reading other authors? Sure there are those of us who want things that will never happen. (For me its Draco and Harry. Or Kell and Rhy from ADSoM) Or for my friend Jen a Daniel/Jesse hook up. (Never gonna happen, okay maybe I’ll write a dream.)—Side note: Kerry says no dream. But others are completely legit, like how I wanted Sookie to end up with Eric and she ended up with the damn dog! (Not a sore spot at all.) I’ve always understood Fanfic because of the impossible ships people want, usually the queer ones. But I never really understood it from a totally possible ship that just was never manifested.
All that being said, I don’t want to disappoint readers. Sure, I’ve known the basic direction Bound Five would go since I wrote Breach of Contract. This series has always been so clear to me. I’ve been a sadist the entire series, with plenty of unanswered questions and angst, but I always knew when it came to an end I wanted the readers to be happy with the place I took it. Anyone have any strange or expected ships?
As I write the last few chapters of Bound Five all I can do is hope I did it justice.
Song of the week: Rat A Tat Fall Out Boy
What I’m reading: Imago by N.R. Walker
Bound Five Teaser:
His phone started to ring, and he took it out and pressed it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Where the fuck are you.” It was his very angry sounding boss.
“You know, just dicking around.” It wasn’t lie.
All around him Zac heard the cocking of guns. He was sure of it. The sound was unmistakable. He looked up to find the entire room not only had drawn guns, but they were all aimed at him.
“No phones. They should have taken that at the door.” Someone said, in heavily accented english. Well fuck them for assuming he was American.
“They took my regular phone. This is my work phone. It can’t leave my side,” he returned in Russian while covering the speaker on the phone. “I have to go,” he said into the phone in German to be safe. He was pretty sure his boss spoke German, or was that his assistant? He couldn’t remember.
“Give me the phone,” the man said, this time in Russian.
This night took a turn for the worst fast. Give over the highly classified phone and stay or hand it over and deal with the consequences later.
“Zac I need you back here this instant…”
Zac hung up the phone took the battery out and tossed it over to the guy. “We good?”
“I’ll shoot you myself if I catch you with it out again.”
Comments