Following Through by Heather Haven

I have a pet peeve. Sometimes authors don’t complete parts of a storyline, no matter how small or inconsequential, and a character, situation, or animal is left hanging out to dry. I hate that.

There is a well-known mystery writer who wrote a well-known novel. In the novel, a woman the detective-protagonist becomes involved with has a cat. The cat is in several scenes and then becomes poisoned. The poison was meant for his new lady friend, who is upset about what happened to her cat. She doesn’t know what to do with the body and he takes over. He puts the body of the cat into a pillowcase and then in the trunk of his car. That’s the last we hear of the cat.

As the story progresses day after day and week after week, nothing more is said about the cat in the pillowcase. I became increasingly disturbed. This was a beloved pet. Doesn’t the woman want to know what happened? Isn’t our protagonist a humane man? We’re led to believe so. Did he bring it to a vet for proper disposal, helping to send it over the rainbow bridge? Did our hero toss it into a trash bin? Or heaven forfend, is the cat’s body still in the trunk of the car?

I have a writer pal who asked me to read her final draft. In the story, the heroine hears the beginnings of a storm. Her dog is barking his head off outside the house. How did he get out she wonders? She opens the front door and goes out to look for her dog. Whammo! She gets hit over the head by the villain. Neighbors save her. Police arrive. A report is written. Her best friend comes to stay with her. This best friend is not the dog, so I began to wonder what happened to Fido? Not one more word was written about the dog. As I was a beta reader, I asked the writer what happened to the dog. Answer? She simply forgot about it once it had achieved its purpose, that of being the catalyst for getting the heroine outside to be struck on the head. No, no, no, no, no.

And this doesn’t happen just to animals or in books. I watched a popular television series where a one-episode, secondary character, a teenager, saved the life of the protagonist. Now that’s a big deal, right? This character saved her life. However, when the police and paramedics show up, we see short scenes of the police marching the bad guy off, and the protagonist being hauled off in the ambulance, but the character who made everything right in the end is nowhere to be found. I kept looking for him. Where did this kid go?

Not only does this kind of stuff throw me out of a story, but it makes me crazy. We’re not talking about a lengthy explanation or mind-boggling follow-through. We’re talking about a phrase or a sentence. With the detective, he could have handed the pillowcase off to his secretary with some instructions, kind or not. With my writer pal, it could be one phrase about the heroine reaching down to pet her dog who lay at her side. Or being upset the dog is missing. Or maybe he’s in the kitchen eating kibble. Something. This kid in the television story decided to do the right thing. It changed his life. Why not give the reader/viewer a split-second of follow-through? A look of satisfaction on the character’s face or one of having grown up a little.

A good follow-through can enhance our work and deepen the facets of our characters. It can also make the reader/viewer feel more grounded. That things are not floating off into the ether, disappearing, never to be heard of again. Even if the outcome is not necessarily the one we want to read about or have happen.

Although, I was glad my writer pal added a line that the heroine was petting the dog by her side. Small mercies.