Should My Characters Divorce?
Hypothetical question: if you read a romantic book series, and in the last book of the series found out that a set of characters from one of the previous books divorced, how mad would you be?
While I love the story I wrote about a pair of characters falling in love, when I look at the couples in the series, they stand out as Most Likely to Divorce. This is your fairly typical enemies-to-lovers trope, which always has me asking if they actually like each other. You’ve got attraction and your standard cutsie-pie romance novel moments, but are they best friends? Can you really love someone after you hated them?
For reasons I won’t explain, I’m a big fan of divorce. Okay, maybe I will explain. Most of the married couples I know hate each other. Half these people should have gotten divorced. I took one look at the examples around me and went nope. Absolutely not.
“Every morning I get up and I thank god that I don’t have some middle-aged, menopausal man telling me how to run my life.” —Donna Sheridan, Mamma Mia
One time, I had a co-worker tell me her divorce was finalized that day, and I said, “Way to go, girl!” and high-fived her. Everyone else was sad and said, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Was I being socially awkward? Probably. Do I care? No. You go, girl. Free yourself.
Getting back to my novel, character-wise, my girl would one hundred percent initiate a divorce, and my guy would one hundred percent go along with it. Writing a love story and then making the characters break up later just seems diabolical as a writer, though.
If I did split up my characters, does that mean I have to write another novel in which my main character finds love? This isn’t something that’s done with romance novels. Romances follow a formula. While I love not following formulas, I’m not successful enough as a writer that I can start forging new pathways in the writing world. I’m also not sure I want to be known as a rage-baiting troll of a writer, because people will love the love story, and it just seems like a mean thing to do to your readers.
When I get around to a re-read of the series, I may just decide to leave it open-ended. I always know a story is finished right when I get the warm and fuzzies at the end, and I did feel that with this story. Nonetheless, something about it still bothers me.
You can’t mess with the happy ending…or can you?
