Ok...I've got this thing just about wrapped up...but I'm stuck. I have two options to take and I don't know which one to take.
Options:
A. The bad guys kinda win by killing over 50% of the US population...which was their plan.
B. The good guys step in just in time to stop the bad guys from causing mass genocide...and only a few 1000 die.
I've got really awesome ideas to support both, but I don't know which is a better package deal. A - reminds me of Empire strikes back...ya know, everyone gets thrown for a loop. B - is more like return of the jedi...the war isn't over, but the chapter has come to an end and we all live to fight another day.
I'm leaning more toward A, but I don't want it to be unfathomable. I know...it's fiction...but I don't want the reader to be turned off if they got all the way to the end just to be like, "wtf?" As a reader, would you be turned off by option A?
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59,188 / 50,000
Dec 1, 2008 - 09 48
Well, I don't know if you've already written it, but the kill off 50% really doesn't seem that much like Empire Strikes Back. In fact, in too many movies, now, it's acceptable to wipe out the population. The audience may be initially horrified, but I think the reason we really think the bad guys one in Empire was because of how personal it was. Han frozen in carbonite and taken by Boba Fett when the last minute rescue failed. The rest chased out of Cloud City, only to barely fly back and rescue Luke who was missing a hand and just found out his father was the one behind all the evil attacking his friends. It was personal and we cared. When it's reduced down to a statistic, we don't really care. It becomes more like a post-apocalyptic thing. That's at least to me.
You mention option B as being "the war isn't over, but the chapter has come to an end and we all live another day," so does that mean there will be some kind of follow-up story? If so I would actually lean toward a modified A. Make it something that's not instantaneous (virus, chemical, radiation, lawyers, whatever) and you can explore ways to make it more personal with the main characters visiting a place that had been devastated that they had connection to. Show that secondary characters and places are gone or dying.
My concern about A isn't that readers would be turned off by it, but that it's been done before for shock value, and it's really lost that value. It's like seeing Moff Tarkin wipe out Alderan. I really didn't care that much. I didn't know Alderan, so it didn't matter. It was a graphic on the screen that exploded. If you use A, then you have to make sure that there's the attachment there and you can make it real for the reader that this is a tragedy. I think you still have to offer them hope, too. At the end of Empire, Luke was looking out into the stars, and we all knew there would be something more to come. If this is a one shot book, spend time on the ending. Make an epilogue, and at least give them a glimpse of hope that people will overcome what happened via memorial service, shutting down the organization that did this, trial of those responsible, something that doesn't just end with the disaster.
Anyway, those are my thoughts, and good luck with the ending. I know I struggle with mine.