Reposting our conversation from my website in full here, Mechgouki. I'll come back and reply ASAP.
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To Mr Chris Woodings,
I had recently read one of your books, The Fade. I must say, The Fade is definitely one of the most ingenious works I have read. The only other time when I had been this impressed by a story was with Dan Brown's Angel's and Demons. (And I-Robot, which was a movie.)
The Fade. You created a mysterious and harsh world, where civilizations live on and under ground. You created a history of 2 races at war. You told the life story of the protagonist, detailing her every thought and her every emotion. And you did this letting us see the world through her eyes, giving us a 1st person view. Few authors have chosen a first-person style, but you executed this in such a way, it might as well be paving the ground for a new genre type. And last but not least, you gave the story a shocking revelation, one which you can only find through one of Rowling's Harry Potter books, or Dan Brown's elaborate conspiracies.
However, the ending was one of the biggest disappointment. I had never been this enthralled by the rest of the story, only to be snuffed out at the end. The protagonist, despite being able to continue fighting, chose to run away from it all. Is that what she really would have done? Having the knowledge that it was her efforts that failed to prevent a war, and the realization that the last family she has, might very well still be alive? And what about the hatred of being cruelly manipulated by someone she trusted completely? True, she probably couldn't bear to live with is death a second time, but that shouldn't have stopped her from seeking out. It was this possibility that kept her fighting the whole time, why would she abandon it now? She had the fight in her to seek vengeance once, why abandon the second chance? She is no coward and no weakling, yet she abandons the fight, along with any hope of finding her last family, evidently clear that she's leaving him to his own devices, even though she chose to believe he is alive. She clearly still has some fight still left in her considering she can still fend off assassins. Is this really what she would have done?
Personally, from what I think, the epilogue was rushed. It felt like it could have gone on, but it just fell down there. It isn't a cliffhanger, but a premature end. To quote, I feel that this is not one of your stories that "wraps itself up in the end without leaving any hanging threads". I have to ask you, is this how you honestly wished the story to have ended?
I have a great personal dislike for stories with cliffhangers. I believe every good story should have a beginning, middle, and and end. And by end, I meant closure. A story without a closure, is like a murder story where the killer was never found, or the hero went missing and was never known what happened. These are just loose threads left hanging. And the same old tired excuse "an open ending gets you thinking" just doesn't quite satisfy me. I believe the ending of a story is just as important as the rest of it.
The Fade is of course not one of those stories. But it still left me high and dry in the end. Because it was great all the way, until it reached the ending.
There is one part in your story I would like to ask. The protagonist found out that one of her targets had something incriminating to her masters, which was the reason for his termination. But her finding that out was purely of chance. There was no way that the mastermind could have fed this information to her intentionally. (Or at least no evidence to suggest so.) Yet she conveniently found this missing link by chance, through 3rd parties with no direct contact with her masters, and this fact became her suspicion, and later, her motive and driving force. It seems a little too convenient and too coincidental.
I'll still like to say, that I really like your story. It was actually the cover of your book that spoke out to me and made me take a closer look. When I saw that the story was written in first person, I knew I had to get it right away.
Will there be a continuing story? Did you leave the story this way because there would be a second one?
Please give me your views regarding what I said. Thank you.
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The ending was anything but rushed. The Fade took me longer than any other book I wrote (and is a lot shorter, ironically). Sorry if it wasn’t to your taste, but the vengeance-quest ending you suggest (now sadly hidden by spoiler tags), with Orna taking names and kicking ass, is just the kind of thing, erm, Dan Brown would do. Not my style.
As to your other point, I really can’t work out which bit you mean. If you still want to discuss it in more detail, post up on the Crooked Lanes forum I linked above and mark it with ‘SPOILERS.’
There won’t be a continuing story. I liked the ending, and I wrote it that way on purpose. Not every book needs to end with the hero standing over the smoking corpses of everyone who’s ever wronged them, y’know
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Hello, thank you for responding.
I'm a little disappointed that you deleted several portions of my message. I had honestly put a lot of thought into writing that.
I did as you ask, and posted the enquiry there.
orokos.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=fadebook&action=display&thread=596I hope you can check it, but quite frankly, it doesn't seem like you visit that place at all.
"with Orna taking names and kicking ass, is just the kind of thing, erm, Dan Brown would do."
Actually, with regards to this, it's exactly the kind of thing SHE would do. She's been doing that throughout the whole story, except for the last part, making it seem contradictory to me.
I am not particularly hoping to see an ending where she is the "hero standing over the smoking corpses of everyone who’s ever wronged them". What I was hoping for was more closure, where she knows about her son, for real.
I can understand why she chose to escape, contrary to her usual method of response, but I personally don't think they outweigh the reasons she has to stay and fight. Perhaps her reasons are desolation, fatigue, hopelessness, and fearing the truth. I can only guess though.
Anyway, I just really need you to answer these questions for me. It is really important that I know. I really have to know this.
Orna knows that she may never know for sure whether her son is alive or not. She knows that if he is indeed still alive, she will be leaving him behind forever, perhaps never being able to see him again. And perhaps leaving him to his own fate as well, to whatever dangers that seek to use him. She knows this very well, but instead she chose to rely on a false hope that a letter she writes will eventually make its way to him. Previous quote: "True, she probably couldn't bear to live with is death a second time, but that shouldn't have stopped her from seeking out. It was this possibility that kept her fighting the whole time, why would she abandon it now?"
She is being hunted, and left with almost nothing, to the point of desperation. There was another world offered to her, with someone waiting for her there. But she could have gone there just as well as after she settles what she needed to settle. Her son was the reason why she came back, why she chose to fight. And yet here she is, abandoning what hope that kept her pressing on. Perhaps she lived with the news of his death once, perhaps she couldn't bear to do it again. I don't really know. She lived a life of servitude, so she truly deserves freedom and peace, but what about her son? She left the surface so that she could find her son. Would she truly be free and at peace knowing that she has not done all that she could possibly have? It was as if she feared death enough to escape from it all.
So here's the most important question I really want to ask. Why? She has so much of a compelling reason to fight. Even if it's not for vengeance, it's for the last family member she has. Fatigue? Never stopped her before. Having nothing but herself? Ditto. A peaceful life on the surface? It would still be waiting for her after she does what she needed to do. I cannot think of a reason good enough, even after reading the epilogue 4 times. I need you to tell me. Why?