Navel fluff general persiflage and help please

[erastes]

a very nice review of Muffled Drum over at Creative Whimsy. Thank you!

http://creative-whimsy.blogspot.com/2011/07/muffled-drum-by-erastes.html

i see a pattern in my reviews, and that's regarding endings. Time and again (not everyone, because everyone's different) I see people saying that the ending was a bit rushed, and that's been the case in more than one of my books. I think all of them at some point or other have been accused of having too abrupt an ending. I don't really know what I can do to change this, to be honest. I write the story as I see it happening, and generally it's with a flurry of action. Partly I suppose because I tend to write cinematically (so I've been told) with slower beginnings and faster endings.  (Heh, that's changed for the opening section of the Book Still Loosely Titled Minced Spies!)

By the time we get to the end, I generally feel that all the romance elements are in place, but some readers don't feel the same, and there must be a disconnect there that I can address—make some kind of compromise, do a bit longer for them without feeling I'm being over-laboured "LOOK THEY LOVE EACH OTHER ALL RIGHT?" 

It is interesting what readers see in your books that you don't, or don't see what you do. One reviewer actually said (not of the ending, but of the eventual bedding of Rafe and Ambrose in Standish that it was abrupt and far too fast!  This did baffle me as Rafe's seduction of Ambrose took months.

AND HELP NEEDED. Anyone know what the arresting sentence would be around the 1920's?  I suPpoSe i should check out Christie books and see if I can find it, but the nearest thing I can find is a 1940 reference on Wikipedia. But after 1912, a caution to remain silent had to be made. Perhaps it wasn't universal like it is today and each force didtheir own? If you don't know – do you know of any UK equivalent sites to "ask a cop" that there might be? And don't suggest Little Details – I ain't NEVER going there again.

Comments

[mylodon.livejournal.com]

There's something along the lines of 999.com which I've seen 'thanked' in a book dedication.

I'm not sure I've seen it in a Christie book, but it might be in Sayers...

[oceankitty1.livejournal.com]

Abrupt endings? No, I wouldn't say so. So far I have been very happy with the endings of your books. Slow build ups and natural conclusions. Maybe it's because you don't write series and people start to miss your characters as the book nears the end? Letting go can be very hard when you like something very much.XD

[crawling-angel.livejournal.com]

Whilst reading Standish I remember panicking that the story was coming to an end...'but they only have X pages to do this that and the other...will they?????' I prefer the slow build-up with a quicker ending. It makes me love the story/characters more because you leave room for me to imagine what is/might be. :) (Crap explanation, yes?) ;p

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Nod nod - now that's the kind of panic I like - Ruth sims had that in The Phoenix--and when it was self-pubbed it didn't have "ROMANCE" on the cover, so I thought omg, they aren't going to get together!!

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Check the Peter Wimsey books. I think even in Conan Doyle the suspect was warned that anything he said could be taken down and used against him. (I remember Watson hurrahing it as the "magnificent fair play of the British system." (Yes, I started reading Holmes when I was about 10 and re-read the whole canon about once a year.