Happy Endings

Today I'm thinking about endings, because I'm less than a thousand words from the maximum length I'll allow myself for my current work in progress.  The story, Cassandra, is Book Four of the Fair Warrior Chronicles.  The situations of the characters have gotten more dire as the story line moves along. A powerful, sinister corporation is bearing down on them for reasons they don't understand. Their lives are in danger. Their strange paranormal abilities seem far too weak to survive an onslaught by the paramilitary forces of their enemy. But Cassandra has to end happily.

If an author wants eXasty Books to call her story a romance, it must have a happy ending.  That's a no-exceptions house rule. The ending has to be either HEA (happy ever after) or HFN (happy for now).  That suits me.  I seldom know how one of my stories will end until I get there. I try to put the emphasis on starting the story in an interesting, immediately erotic way, and maintaining a fast pace of sex and action. I figure there's no point worrying about the ending unless people are willing to read that far. But knowing the story needs to end happily colors everything that comes before.

No matter how much desperation or heartache my characters endure, the necessity of a happy ending requires me to keep hope alive in their hearts. Fortunately for an erotic writer, people tend to feel pretty hopeful after they've been well laid. A piece of writing advice attributed to American detective fiction writer Raymond Chandler is, "If in doubt, have three guys come through the door with guns."  In writing erotic romances, I change this to, "If in doubt, have three three people come through the door naked." It's fairly easy to make encounters of this kind end with happiness all round.