What Have I Done Wrong This Time?

                What have I done wrong? My characters aren’t going to be stripped to their souls with angst as they struggle with inner turmoil and futile endeavors. Aeden ( “Light Riders and the Morenci Mine Murder”) may jump from a moving train but she’s not about to throw herself under it like Anna Karenina. Sure, my protagonists willl have conflicts and lots of them, but it’s all in good fun. Whatever happened to just plain old adventure and edge- of- your- seat suspense?

            Needless to say, I’ve just read another expose from some expert explaining that writers must “continue to tear open the wounds that their characters have buried until the soul bleeds.” Bleeds? Really? Can’t EB Lyner (“The Last Tag”) just sneak around Ancient Rome on his skateboard until he finds the murderer?

            I feel like screaming “Lighten Up!” Not every novel needs a Kafkaesque plot or layers of repressed Faulkner–like emotion to engage readers. Sometimes you just need a good laugh.

            Try telling Sophie Kinsella that her protagonist in Shopaholic really needed psychoanalysis or that Janette Rallison’s teenager girl characters should undergo Freudian counseling because they’ve just caught their boyfriends cheating!

            My characters may whine, scream, curse and take ridiculous risks while time traveling, but they won’t be driven to the point of unleashing their inner demons. Did Nancy Drew? Did the Hardy Boys? Did Doctor Who? 

            I guess I’ll just have to live with the fact that my characters will use all of their physical strength and mental capacities to solve mysteries, survive treacherous adventures and walk away only to come back another time and do it again! Can Hamlet say that?