So I overthink things in general, and as a new author, I’m spending way too much time thinking about what people think of my first and so far only published sale. There aren’t that many people and outlets reviewing short fiction in the SFF arena, which makes me even more aware of anything said at all about “By the Will of the Gods.”
By and large, reviews of “By the Will of the Gods” have been favorable! For which I am thankful. The other day, though, I saw the first unfavorable review of the story. And I actually find myself agreeing with it!
SPOILERS.
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So in this GoodReads review (and yes, I’m somewhat in the weeds if I’m tracking GoodReads reviews, but again, there aren’t that many reviews of SFF short fiction), a reader notes, “The story is well paced and the world building is interesting, but it ends with basically the villain explaining everything before the hero ends things properly - like a mediocre Bond movie.”
And you know what, fair point. Looking back, there are two issues with the scene. First, when I was writing character biographies (and yes, I actually took the time to create short biographies of all the characters in the story, which I thought was stupid when I started but which actually helped me immensely when it came to writing the novelette), Rusty, the villain, has many dark triad traits, which you’d expect of a contract killer. In the first scene with Rusty, I try and play up his narcissism, his desire to feel important and better than others. Of course, what kills him is how he basically has to keep a lot of that secret so that he doesn’t get caught. In that final scene with Rusty, when he cuts off radio communications, he gets the chance to finally indulge himself and lord it over a victim. Perhaps I should have had him say something along the lines of, “I never get to talk about any of this, it feels good to finally indulge myself,” or have Hap say, “Rusty really likes to hear himself talk.”
I guess the reason I didn’t think of explaining Rusty’s talkative nature, and the second issue with this scene, is because, well, having a character explain the crime away is such an established trope in murder mysteries that I didn’t even really recognize how tired it can be. Personally, I find that final explanatory moment in murder mysteries charming, but either I didn’t pull it off well or not every reader is going to like such scenes. Since I’m new as a murder mystery author, it’ll be good for me in the future to really recognize tropes when I’m using them and to think carefully about their use.
So, hey, getting an unfavorable review isn’t the best thing in the world, and it’s not like I want more of them, but I’m actually pretty happy with the one I’ve gotten so far.