That Time My Best Friend Stopped Talking To Me Because of My Book

Photo by Free-Photos, Pixabay (effects by author)

Would you stop talking to me if you had a problem with my book?

As readers, we become highly invested in our favourite fictional characters. When these heroes succeed in their endeavours, we rejoice. If they fall apart at the seams, our hearts break with them. And if they make what we think is the wrong choice, we can feel deflated, disappointed.

Sometimes, when an author takes their character(s) in the direction that we don’t want them to or if it’s a little bit controversial, it can affect our enjoyment of the book — to varying degrees. We might rant about it in our reviews, shake our heads whenever we remember it, or even ask ourselves if we want to read another novel by this author ever again. Depending on how much we cared about the characters and the story, of course.

Have you ever wondered how the friends and family of your favourite authors react to plot lines and character arcs that they disapprove of? Most of these people will likely read earlier drafts of these novels — do they try to change the author’s decisions if they don’t agree with them? I guess most authors feel extremely flattered if the people close to them care so much about their creations, but in the end, they will want their loved ones to understand and support their choices.

That’s what ends up happening, I think, like it did with me and my best friend. I laugh about it now, but she really did stop talking to me for a while after reading and questioning the ending of Every Little Piece of Us, the third book in my contemporary multicultural romance series, the Soulmates Saga.

My first ‘beta reader’

My BFF was the first person to read my debut self-published novel, Every Little Piece of You, Book 1 in the Soulmates Saga (initially published as Chasing Pavements) and she was instrumental in convincing me to polish and publish it. She would stay up until 2am reading it, send me daily (or hourly) updates with what chapter she was on, and she helped me improve it by telling me things I needed to know: What made sense, what didn’t. What she liked, what she loved. What she thought needed more clarification, what was overdone. It would be an understatement to say that she was invested in my characters and…