Guest Post: The End or Not? by Shelley Workinger, author of the Solid series

Shelley's latest novel, Sound (Solid #3) was released last week, November 1, 2012, and I have to say I was sad to see the series end. But, maybe there is still hope? :-)

In case you missed my review of Sound, you can find that HERE.

Take it away, Shelley!

The release of Soundbrings the SOLID series to a close. Maybe.

You see, my feelings on the subject are so conflicted that I’d have to say, if the series had a FB profile, its relationship status would be “it’s complicated!” Don’t forget—the story of Clio and her friends was only ever intended to be one standalone book, and look how that turned out. ;-)

To avoid spoilers, I will somewhat cryptically say that Sound does end, meaning that many things are resolved, there’s no last-page cliffhanger, and, as a writer, I believe that readers can close the cover with a reasonable sense of closure.

However, not all of the questions are answered, which, as a reader, kills me. Because I’m that person–the one who turns the last page of a book and says, “But what about that girl in the coffee shop (substitute any character from your current read who claims maybe one line of passive text and is noticed by pretty much nobody); what happened to her?”

I like—no, need—all the ends of a story to be tied into neat little bows. I’m not the person who can just assume the characters will live happily ever after; I grew up in the generation of storytellers whose signature move is the last-minute twist, after all! So until I’m actually told that Romeo and Juliet died and stayed dead—that they weren’t reincarnated or resurrected as zombies—my inner voice may continue to pose, “But…” And that’s the part of me that’s having a hard time letting the SOLID series end with an unwritten ellipses rather than a bold-print THE END.

Yet, it would’ve been wholly unsatisfying in a different way to cram all of the answers into Soundand the three short months in which those first three books take place. The story that I’d sort of thought of as a summer fling that would end neatly and finally without so much as even a promise of a future, instead left me sitting in my room at the end of the season having accumulated so much more than I’d planned to and no way to shove it all into the bag I’d brought.

So it seems my choices are to leave that metaphorical extra stuff on the floor, walk out, and close the door; or to pick up all of it—the old things and the new ones—and write one more book to contain everything. If I went for the latter, I’d have to set the book several years from now, giving the characters time to organically unearth all of the answers. And if I were to do that, I’d probably have to alternate chapters between that future present and the pre-C9x past, which would mean it’d make the most sense for the book to be titled Split…

Not that I’m making any promises. ;-)

You can get your copies of Sound and the rest of the series here:

SOUND (#3) is NOW AVAILABLE for purchase at:
http://amzn.com/1478377003 (Print Edition)
http://amzn.com/B009Z3OKDQ (Kindle Edition)

Solid (#1):  http://www.amazon.com/Solid-Shelley-Workinger/dp/1453624821/ref=la_B003VRNPCE_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1352229392&sr=1-2

Settling (#2): http://www.amazon.com/Settling-Solid-Book-Shelley-Workinger/dp/1460981723/ref=la_B003VRNPCE_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1352229392&sr=1-3