I Blame Rowling

Recently I read two books, one completely self-published and another that was published through what is an imprint of Amazon publishing.

The completely self-published book, Haven, by Kate Roshon, was well-done although I could see where it could have benefited from an editor. There were very few typographical errors, which was great, but there were a few areas where I wanted to say "show don't tell." However, it was a good story and I applaud the author (whose husband plays in a video game with me, just so you know), for nice work. For a totally self-published book, this was good and well done, and one of the few self-published books I would recommend if you read science fiction. If I should chose to publish in this manner, I can only hope I do as well with all of the editing and creating a cover and all that goes into making such a book.

Haven was a dystopian tale with hope. I'll leave it at that because I don't want to give away much of the story.

The other book went through a total editing process with a team of editors via Amazon. The book was free to me as a Kindle First book (if you belong to Prime, you get a free book at the beginning of each month; the books so far have all been from Amazon's own publishing imprint, Lake Union Publishing). Daughters of the Night Sky, by Aimee K. Runyon, was a historical tale about women who flew planes for Russia during World War II. It was an interesting fictional look at a historical fact I knew nothing about, and I enjoyed the read.

However, both of the books had what I have come to call the Rowling Syndrome. It's actually a literary device known as an epilogue. She didn't invent it and it is not unique to her, but the ending of her series of children's books is the most famous example I can think of.

In J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Rowling ended the story (and series) not where it should have ended - with Hogwarts retaken, the Death Eaters defeated, and Harry saving the world, but with an epilogue that I (and a few others) disliked. The epilogue took away any imagination of the characters' future lives by writing about how Harry married Gini and Ron married Hermione and they had little kids and lived happily ever after.

These two books I recently read had the same sort of endings. The stories reached points where they should have ended, but the authors went forward in time to each main character's old age and showed how their life played out.

I know some people like this kind of completeness in an ending, but I rather prefer the idea of the story ending in a good place - but with room left for one to imagine what else might have happened, rather than being told how things went on to end.

In Harry Potter, for example, I would have preferred to not know who married whom, or what they ended up doing with their lives. I would have liked to have imagined that for myself (and I would never have married Hermione to Ron). It is the same with these two books I just read. I'd rather have imagined the futures of the two women in each story from a certain point, and not seen how things turned out for them.

Sometimes it is good to let the reader use her imagination. If the character has any appeal, I like to fantasize about what might have happened, who she ended up with, how the rest of her life might have played out. Having it all laid out for me there on the page seems to take something from me.

What do you think?