fpw Wrote:My series theory (and I'm working this out as I go) is that characters not essential to the ongoing storylines must be at risk. Obviously when you start an RJ novel you can assume he'll be alive at the end. Same with Gia and Vickie and Abe and Julio. So how do you generate suspense under those circumstances?
My solution: NO ONE ELSE IS SAFE.
There is, in a sense, a war going on, and wars cause casualties on both sides. That means good guys sometimes get hurt.
Just because I've painted a sympathetic portrait of a character doesn't mean he/she will be alive on the last page.
**POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT**
I for one think that this is why I liked The Tomb so much and why newcomers can't get the same feel from it. I (We) had no idea whether Jack would survive at the end of that novel. You left the ending open. Not much better than a story that leaves some things open and doesn't wrap everything up in a nice little package with a bow on top.
I assume that at some point even Abe, Gia, and/or Vicky may become expendable to the story. (I don't think they are mentioned in Nightworld - somebody refresh me.) I only hope that you don't telegraph to us when you are reaching the end of the cycle and closing in on Nightworld's fateful events.
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. ... The piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
~ Howard Phillips Lovecraft