by Bethany Turner, @SeeBethanyWrite
Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash
As I write this, I’m sitting in an airport. My flight has been delayed three times…oh…nope. That announcement was for me. My flight has been delayed
four times and all I want is to finally hop on a plane out of DFW, fly back to Colorado, kiss my husband, hug my sons, and go to bed. (In my Mountain time zone it’s currently 9:45 a.m. and I’ve been awake for eight-and-a-half hours. Just sayin’.)
But it’s funny. Even though I’m frustrated by ongoing flight delays, I’m finding that I can’t really get too upset. After all, I don’t know the cause of the delays. Sure, maybe it just comes down to bad planning, but there’s also a chance they’re fixing something on the plane that
really needs to be fixed prior to takeoff. If I believe in God’s timing, don’t I have to believe this is part of that? Who knows what disasters may be avoided by a later departure? Who can say what impact additional conversations at gate B29 may have on someone’s life? For all I know, I’m living out the television show Manifest, and this delay will prevent us from landing five years in the future, after our loved ones have mourned us and moved on. (Alright…that’s probably not what’s happening. But in my current sleep-deprived state, I just can’t say for sure…)
The point is, we should never dismiss the delays as simply a waste of time. It’s true at the airport, it’s true when we’re stuck in traffic, and it’s true on our journeys toward publication.
It’s also true for the fictional friends in our head.
Have you ever been caught up in a story, savoring every glorious moment of anticipation, and then…poof? It’s as if someone snapped their fingers, broke the spell, got impatient, and pulled the cake out of the oven while it was still runny in the middle. (Again, I’m going to fall back on sleep deprivation as the justification for that sentence full of mixed, half-baked metaphors.) You know what it’s really like? It’s
Manifest! You step onto the plane in 2015 and you land in 2020, but you didn’t even get to enjoy 2016 through 2019.
Don’t do that to your readers. Just…don’t. Don’t rush the ending. Don’t tie everything up with a neat little bow unless you take the time to show your readers those six-inch ribbon curls you’ve been working on.
This is what your readers have been waiting for. This is what it’s been building towards.
This. Those impressive, majestic, six-inch ribbon curls are the reason they began reading in the first place. Don’t cheat them. If you’re running long, there’s probably some early backstory exposition you can trim. If you’re not excited by what you’re writing and just want it to be finished, go back and figure out where the story lost you. (That’s probably where it will lose your readers, too.) And if you’re so anxious to get to that ending (because it’s going to be an incredible ending) that you just can’t take it anymore, that’s fantastic! That’s something else you’ll probably have in common with your readers. But guess what? You’re the one in control.
So take control. Take charge. Make them wait. And then, of course, make it worth their while.
Never underestimate the impact that can be made while hanging out at gate B29.
An aspiring screenwriter has a chance encounter with an actor who could be the man of her dreams. Over the next ten years, she’ll write the story . . . but will he end up being the star?
February 4, 2003, promises to be a typical day for Olivia Ross—a greeting card writer whose passion project is a screenplay of her own. But after she and a handsome actor have a magical meet-cute in a coffee shop, they make a spontaneous pact: in ten years, after they’ve found the success they’re just sure they’re going to achieve, they’ll return to the coffeehouse to partner up and make a film together. The only problem? Olivia neglected to get the stranger’s name. But she doesn’t forget his face—or the date.
For the next ten years, every February 4 is marked with coincidences and ironies for Olivia. As men come and go and return to her life, she continues to write, but still wonders about the guy from the coffee shop—the nameless actor she’s almost certain has turned out to be Hamish MacDougal, now a famous A-lister and Hollywood leading man.
Bethany Turner writes romantic comedies for a new generation of readers who crave fiction that tackles the thorny issues of life with humor and insight. Her titles include
The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck, Wooing Cadie McCaffrey, Hadley Beckett’s Next Dish, Plot Twist, and the upcoming The Do-Over. A former bank vice-president and a three-time cancer survivor (all before she turned 35), Bethany now serves on the executive leadership staff of a growing church in Southwest Colorado, where she lives with her husband and their two teenaged sons. For her romantic comedy novels, Bethany has been awarded multiple Selah Awards, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, been repeatedly named to Family Fiction’s annual list of 40 Essential Romance Authors, and been a finalist for the Vivian Award and the Christy Award. But she’s also received some of the most fabulous one-star reviews ever written! (Seriously…there are some absolute gems in there.) Hang out with Bethany at seebethanywrite.com or @seebethanywrite across social media platforms, where she’s likely to be found celebrating those one-star reviews and obsessing over Colin Firth. Text her at (970) 387-7811.