The Four Cs of A Writer’s Contract with the Reader

UPDATE: Between the drive back to DC and the astute observations of some folks in the comment thread, I have revised my thesis. See changes below:

People all over the internet are discussion reader satisfaction as it pertains to series conclusion. It’s on blogs, on lists, and in more private emails and IM conversations than can be counted. One of my favorite discussions is at Justine Larbalestier’s blog. What does the writer of a series (book or television or movie or what have you) owe to a fan of that series?

Justine is of two minds. As a writer, she says she owes the reader jack squat. As a fan, she thinks the writer should do what she wants them to.

As a writer writing the last book in her series, this topic has been much on my mind. I know what my readers want me to do with the series. They make no bones about telling me. I also know what’s going to happen in my book and have known for, oh, at least a year in some cases, a lot longer than a year in others. I’ve known the events of Rites of Spring (Break) since early 2006. This is somewhat different from a writer of a TV show, who can react to fans on the fly and change things in a series every few episodes. Better? Worse? Nah, just different.

A lot of people are arguing about whether or not it’s a “good” thing for a writer to respond to her fans’ desires. Is someone who does what her fans want her to do with the story a “sell out” or “slavish” to that particular portion of her fan base? (Because in any fanbase, as many people as want you to go with option A, you’d better believe there are some who are begging you to do just the opposite.) What if the writer has already decided that is what she’s going to do, unbeknownst to you all?

I do believe that we, as writers, have a contract with the reader. We have promised them certain things in our series. And what we have promised is as follows:

A writer, in fulfilling her contract with the reader, should write a story that is consistent with canon, character, choices, and consequences, and closure.

To break it down:

1) Canon: A writer must follow the rules of the story. If you don’t, the reader has been betrayed. There’s no point in reading something if the world you have been investing in suddenly fails. Imagine if you were playing a game and suddenly every rule you’d been following was thrown out the window. You get more than four downs. Don’t bother dribbling. Pick that soccer ball up with your hands. Don’t pay when you land on Park Place. Move that rook diagonally.

Would you find any point to the game after that?

Now, the flip side of that is the reversal, which is totally valid, even if it “violates” canon. The prime example of this reversal is the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Throughout the series, the myth of the slayer is that there is only one girl. One slayer, and when she dies, a new one is chosen. But they also play with the definition of this myth from the very first season. At the end of the first season, Buffy “dies” for a few minutes, but is resuscitated. Who do we meet in season two? The “other” slayer who was chosen during her death. This “other” slayer (and her “descendant”) reappear in every season that follows. So when the denouement of the entire series is a massive effort to “break” the one Slayer rules and imbue all potential slayers with slayer powers, the reader goes along with it. It doesn’t violate canon — it’s a reversal for which the purpose of the canon was created.

2) Character: A writer must be true to the characters they have created. Of course they can have layers, and reveal previously unknown depths, but they must remain who they are. Vain people are vain. Cold people are cold. Jokey people are jokey. If you turn your characters into something else entirely, the reason your readers have been following your series– your beloved, fabulous characters– vanishes. In Under the Rose, when the cold, sarcastic, harsh, angry Poe is forced to join forces with Amy, does he stop being cold, sarcastic, harsh, and angry? No. He is all of those things, just working on her side in that book.

3) Choices: Throughout the series, your character has been making choices. They have believed things, valued things, wanted things. And though these beliefs may have changed over the course, of the series, they can’t change on a dime there at the end. It needs to be a regular, established arc. In addition, the choices the characters have made should not be negated or forgotten. Readers are savvy folk. If a character has chosen A and then, in a subsequent book, they keep talking about how what they really did was B, the reader will call you on it. And they’ll have every right to.

Update: Above deleted because, though I do believe these things, I don’t necessarily think they add much to the conversation about series, as it’s kinda covered in the character and consequences consistency.

3) Consequences: Hand in hand with all of the above, the writer must be consistent with the consequences of their story. If a vampire dies in the sunlight (canon), then you can’t suddenly have vampires walking around in the sun. A character must suffer the consequences of having that personality (vanity, cowardice, etc.), as well as the consequences of the choices they make. And, most of all, there must be consequences. If nothing changes, what’s the point?

4) Closure. Annie put it best: “I also think the writer owes the reader some kind of conclusion of all minor plot points throughout the series (I’ve read series where minor arcs were left dangling and it drove me insane).” Now, of course, not everything everything everything will ever be completely complete. But a writer should do her best, and if she leaves some things hanging, well, you should get the sense that it’s the way she meant it to be (or that it doesn’t really matter). Of course, try saying “that doesn’t matter” to a fan of some small part of your story.  J.K. Rowling tried to show us all the future lives of her characters, and I was all, “What about Neville?” I get a lot of people asking me about Gus Kelting. (Oddly, no one ever asks about Howard.)

But an effort is appreciated. Leave too much hanging, and again, you get readers asking, “What’s the point?”

And maybe that’s the simplest rule of all. Have a point.

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What does a writer owe to the reader? Nothing but consistency in the story they’ve been telling.