An open letter to multiple authors:

[conuly]

Dying and going to heaven is not a happy ending. Neither is ascending to a higher plane of existence, collectively or alone, whether or not this involves the death of your corporeal body.

Stop that.

Love, me.

Comments

[ioplokon]

Right like, your novel probably shouldn't read like an ad spot for fucking Heaven's Gate...

[conuly]

And this is why I'll never reread Childhood's fucking End.

[larryhammer]

You'd think this would be obvious to anyone who'd read Childhood's End. But apparently not.

[conuly]

I hate that book so much, I actually have to go walk it off if anybody brings it up IRL.

[larryhammer]

Whoops — sorry ’bout that!

[conuly]

You couldn't've known. I don't talk about it much, for the obvious reason.

[greghousesgf]

It's even worse when Heaven turns out to be really lame. Looking at you, Last Battle.

[sabotabby]

And then there's poor Susan, age 21, with her whole family dead. That'll bring her closer to God for sure.

[greghousesgf]

yeah, I hated that part of it too. why in hell kill off the parents? they didn't even know Narnia existed!
P.S. great icon, I love books and Siamese kitties

[conuly]

Not to mention any other trainwreck casualties.

[greghousesgf]

It wasn't mentioned whether there were other people on the damn train and if they survived but you're right, there probably were!

[hudebnik]

https://talesofmytery.blogspot.com/2014/11/neil-gaiman-problem-of-susan.html

[rhoda_rants]

Yep-yep. Only arguable exceptions to this are characters who start out dead and their arc is all about moving on, like Eric Draven or Thackery Binks. Otherwise--yeah, don't do that.

[conuly]

Every writer who tries it thinks they can pull it off. Most of them are just not that good, so I don't know why they think they can do this.

[rhoda_rants]

Maybe because it's super common and/or expected? I dunno. I guess it depends on how much your ideology is based on the whole noble self-sacrifice thing.

[larryhammer]

(You do realize that you've turned making a collective ascension actually be a happy ending into a writing challenge, yes? I figure an erotica author has the best shot here, but that could be because I am secretly still fifteen years old.)

[conuly]

Unless you can come down from that ascension once you're done with your fun, it's never gonna happen.

[larryhammer]

A Big Bang orgy creating a new universe/plane of existence/playground?

Or maybe not ...

[silveradept]

That's not nearly as good a reward as authors and others seem to think it is. Heroes should be able to live a long life and see the results of their good actions.