pjb76

[pjb76]

Testimony

@boycottthetestaments

Imagine I wrote a six-book series about the fight between humans and vampires. I follow all of the usual tropes – vampires burn in sunlight, are repelled by garlic and crosses, have to be invited into your home, etc. The series has a human protagonist, trapped with the vampires and used by them in a variety of ways. There is another human there, and they help each other. Let’s call them Jude and Rick.

When Jude and Rick meet, it is always outside during the day. The sun is shining, and she brings him his favorite forbidden snack – garlic bagels. Once, she fashions a makeshift cross for him and he wears it on a string under his shirt.

Let’s say, in book 4, Jude escapes back to the human community, but Rick is left behind. However, they still contrive to meet up sometimes – always in a nice sunny park, where again she brings him garlic bagels. Once in a while, they meet in someone’s home, and he just walks right in.

Then imagine in the last 20 pages of book 6, Rick shows up at Jude’s home in the middle of the night and stands talking to her on the front porch until she explicitly invites him in. Once in the house, fangs pop out and he attacks her. She has to kill her closest friend and ally. How tragic! He must have been turned into a vampire in the very last scenes of the book – how heartbreaking. But no!

I spend the last 10 pages of the book explaining that Rick was always a vampire! He was just a one in a million vampire who sometimes could be in the sun, or eat garlic, or go into people’s home (and sometimes couldn’t). I never indicated that such vampires might be possible.  I never suggested in the other books that we might not see his reflection in a mirror, or that he might have some blood on his collar because I didn’t think of this twist until I was at the very end of this long saga. I was bored. I wanted to shock you. Would you throw the book across the room in utter frustration?

What I did was unfair to you – the reader. I invented new rules at the very last minute. Rules that were inconsistent with almost 6 entire books.  Books that you purchased because you were invested in the characters and stories that I had written. And then I told you the whole thing was a lie. Thanks for the $$!

Then! I go on the talk show circuit. I talk to GMA and Jimmy Kimmel and anyone who will listen – “look, the guy survived for a decade in vampire society. Didn’t you wonder what he was doing off page? Just because he is nice to Jude and helps her, doesn’t mean that he isn’t drinking the blood of infants or torturing the elderly or kicking adorable puppies. You’re stupid if you didn’t always somehow know he was a bad guy!”

Which makes it even worse. Because now your rightful feelings of indignation are being laughed at. I joke, “You probably had a picture of Rick in your head, and he looked like your high school crush, or the actor in that one movie you thought was hot. You just wanted him and Jude to make out because you have a sad personal life, or you like abusive men. You’re just angry because I told a hard, gritty story instead of one with rainbows and hearts.”

And you are boiling now because you know better – but you are just one person, and I have a publishing company and a marketing team and I have a number of large social media platforms that I can tweak and edit that say my twist is brilliant! Give me the Pulitzer! What a commentary on how you really can’t trust anyone, the media says.

But the only person you no longer trust is me. Because I didn’t care about you, the reader. I promised you something and then I pulled the rug out, just for fun. Just because I have the power to do that. What are you going to do about, you #ofrick??

Hopefully, you will dump all of my books in the recycling bin. And you will call your local bookstore and ask them to stop stocking my product. You will go back and change your 5-star reviews for the first five books to 0-star reviews. You will refuse to ever buy anything I write again. You will be, it turns out, one of many who just don’t support me anymore – because I didn’t support you.  And my next book doesn’t make the bestseller list, or the on the after that. Because, the final truth, I am a shitty writer.

#boycottthetestaments