Predictability

Although I have yet to get this complaint, many of the reviews I read rate a book lower because it's too predictable. The problem is that the romance genre is predictable by nature. Readers would be even more upset, and rightly so, if a book ended badly or wrong. Karen Kingsbury had many upset readers when she changed the man her main character was destined to end up with in midstream in her Bailey Flanagan series. Beth Wiseman received some complaints for the way Message in a Bottle ended.

In a romance novel, we don't read to see who the main characters will end up with as much as we read to see what will happen to get them there. If being able to guess the ending bothers a reader, the person needs to choose another genre. Mysteries may give the twists, turns, and unpredictability some readers prefer. Women's fiction doesn't always have a happy ending either. In fact, this is why women's fiction is not my favorite. I want happy endings in what I read, because real life has too many unhappy ones.

I find novels that try hard to be unpredictable less satisfying. They either have undesirable endings, or they try to fool the reader into believing something that hasn't happened,which is deceitful or lying to the reader. I view reading somewhat predictable novels like a trip to a long-anticipated destination. You know where you're going to end up, but there's a lot of excitement and adventure in getting there. And once you arrive, you're oh so glad you came. 

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