My book makes people cry. Is this a good thing or not - and why can't books have 'dahh-dahhhh-dahhhhhh' music?

'I Don't Want to Talk About It' has been out for a couple of weeks now.  It appears to be making people cry. A lot.  Reviews mention words such as 'sobbing uncontrollably'.

And all this makes me feel a bit guilty.  I mean, in films and TV programmes you know when something sad is coming along, because the music goes all 'dahhhh...daaahhhh...dahhhhhhhhahhhhh', so you've had the signal that the news is going to be bad and everyone's going to come over all teary, and then there's a cut and it's six weeks later and there's a single rose blooming and everyone is all brave and stoic and everything, but we don't get that luxury in books...

Come on, admit it, you were traumatised for life, weren't you?

...where, like in real life,  sad things come out of nowhere.  They knock our legs out from under us, and then we just have to live through them, day by day, and we can't even do the 'cutaway to six weeks later'.

Which is all wrong.  Why should films get all the 'warning music' and then the bonus 'two years later' thing, when life and books make us go through horrible things in slow motion?  Not all books, I suppose, in fiction we have the 'cutaway' option, but I always feel that's cheating a bit.  If you can't do it in real life - my imaginary T shirt slogan reads - then you shouldn't be allowed to do it in books.  Which is a bit of a problem for people writing science fiction, I suppose. Or fantasy. All right, let's amend the slogan.  'IF YOU CAN'T DO IT IN REAL LIFE (EXCEPT FOR WHERE IT MAY BE POSSIBLE EITHER IN THE FUTURE OR IN ANOTHER REALITY (FURTHER EXCEPTING THOSE THINGS THAT ARE PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE OR IMPRACTICAL)) THEN YOU SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO DO IT IN BOOKS'. And you are going to need a fairly large chest to carry that one off, but there you go.

Where was I?  Oh yes.  Books that make people cry.  I never set out to write a book that would make people cry, honestly.  I know it's an emotional book, but the only thing about it that ever made me emotional during the writing process was the poem at the end, which is Christina Rosetti's 'Remember', which always makes me cry for no very good reason. For the record, other things that make me cry are: the end scene of The Incredible Journey, Snow Patrol's version of Run (and only that version), and the advert for the Halifax where the bloke leaves his scarf on a bus. And that's pretty much it, because I am Hard.

Well, yes, obviously abandoned puppies and kittens and ill treated animals, but that's not just me, is it? IS IT?

 

 

But I am choosing to take my book's making people cry as a compliment, because of the whole 'book/real life' thing. If readers are able to suspend their knowledge that they are sitting reading a story about people that only exist in my head to the extent that those people can make them cry...then that must be a good thing. Right?