The following post contains spoilers for my latest novel, College Town, a standalone, second chance romance. If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, you can grab it here:
The final chapter of College Town is one my favorite chapters out of all my projects. It goes back and forth between Tommy's hospital stay and subsequent release, and the night of the 20-year high school reunion.
“You know,” Lawson says, “when I first got this email, I was dreading this party.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. But it was fun.”
Chapter one opens with Dana breaking the bad news to Lawson that she agreed they would co-host the reunion, so it was fitting to close the book with the party itself. Lawson's world looks completely different than it did when he first started dreading the event; he and Tommy went through a whole heck of a lot in a short amount of time. It's a well-earned happy ending.
I had a reader ask me several years ago if I felt "pressured" to write a happy ending for each of my books. College Town being a proper romance, it of course had to have one: that's one of the non-negotiable hallmarks of any romance novel, the happy ending. But I write happy endings for all my books, romance or otherwise, not because I feel any sort of pressure to do so, but because I don't have any interest in writing an ending that isn't happy. I've certainly read books with melancholy, bittersweet, and even haunting endings that were fantastic...but, personally, I always want to leave readers with a sweet, warm feeling as the book closes. I do enjoy torturing my characters with drama and angst, but at the end of the story, I want to reward them for hanging in there.
One of the things I've always asked myself with regards to sad endings, or major character deaths is: Aside from "reflecting reality," does this tragedy actually enhance the story? Or is it simply a means of adding grit? As a younger writer, when I was in college, my peers were very into realism, and I admit to getting swept up into that idea, too. Real life isn't always happy; a story can't be good unless it's strictly realistic. But the older I get, the more strongly I reject that idea. Life is hard, sometimes it sucks, and there's no shortage of real-world heartbreak - why can't our stories be an escape from that?
I enjoyed Lawson and Tommy - and their friends; the girls were the real MVP of this book - so much that I could have easily written another dozen chapters of domestic bliss and day-to-day activity, but I'm very happy with where I left things for them. They're going home, in more ways than one.
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