Catherine Hackman

I am reading Jane Friedman’s book:

She suggests that I tell people why I write so they will know what to expect when they read my books.

I love to write because I love to read. When I was young, books took me out of my life to other places, to adventures I could experience through the words. Reading gave a relaxing exploration of other peoples’ lives. This was in the ’70’s and ’80’s.

Back in the day, books almost always had a happy ending, or at least one that didn’t leave the reader feeling crummy. Sometime in the ’90’s that changed. Books became about evil twists, about people dying, about horrible things happening to people. More than one writing expert recommends: find the worst thing that can happen to your character, and make that happen. That’s about the time I stopped liking to read. In my opinion, real life has enough real bad without me inviting bad into my life by reading about it.

One book, and one movie rendition of a book, turned me off of reading for several years.

The book was “A Thousand Acres” by Jane Smiley.  Spoiler Alert:  Skip to the next paragraph if you don’t like spoilers. In “A Thousand Acres,” nothing good happens to ANY of the characters.   The entire book is one bad thing after another. One sister tries to poison another sister who eventually dies of breast cancer. That woman’s husband kills himself. On and on. To this day, I regret buying it. The movie that turned me off to reading was “Cold Mountain.” As I remember it, the main love interest survives an explosion, a Civil War battle, being captured by hostile people, a gunshot wound to the neck, and in the end, he and the evil villain kill each other. I still want my money back on that one, too. You can’t make a person invincible and then let the evil person kill him. It just isn’t right.

My stories won’t always have happy endings, but I hope that they will leave you with a sense of completion, peace, and satisfaction at having read a good story. Also, my stories aren’t continual train wrecks. The characters have ups and downs, have a struggle against an opposing force, etc., but my readers shouldn’t feel a sense of despair while reading the book because there is always hope for my characters, even if they die.

I want my books to be satisfying adventures experienced with characters you would like to have as your friends. I want my books to be places you want to go and experiences you want to have. I want my books to transport you to a better place.

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See Ya!