I read a story once (I know you’re shocked) about a boy that died in an airplane.

(This will be a light-hearted blog, I swear.)

It was a sad story and I had no idea it would end there. Before the up. Before the happy. Before the “and everything was at least OK after that.”

The resolution was…NOT what I expected is a gentle way to say it.

And it wasn’t a horror story. Not at all.

It was one of the more beautiful stories I have ever read.

It has been years and years since I read it and the setting is still visceral. I can see it. I can see the boy. I know his parents, where they live, how they live. The smell, taste and touch through every step of the story.

More than a movie. With a flat screen I can’t *tink-tink* reach through the glass with anything but my eyes.

More than a newspaper story that is more a names-and-dates history lesson with a perfunctory “tragedy struck today” from a voice as monotone as their eyes. No life.

This had life.

Burst with life, and color and sound. I can go back and hear the birds, feel the steel. Smell the vegetation. Feel the boy’s feelings.

And then the story ended and I was changed.

Stories can do that.

Really well-told stories.

Really well.

I’ve also read really well-written stories that made me cry LAUGHING.

One I read recently was paragraph to paragraph, sentence by sentence for the first 2-3 pages of the story stop and laugh. The bend over, wipe my eyes, restoring joy and faith in humanity levels of deep enjoyable laughter.

Because they were talking truth in a most visceral and beautiful way. And unexpected.

I have been quoting that story, the brilliantly original phrases of a character’s view on life that had me stop every few words and just enjoy. Laugh, roll on my side, let the glow in me out and my voice sing.

It is also now one of my most memorable stories. So joyous. Funny.

So perfectly unexpected.

And really, really good writing.

Now, I am a romance reader, which is the most dialed in, “down the rails,” EXPECTED type of story out there. No surprises there.

What!?!

They get together at the end?

*gasp*

*swoon*

Aaaaaaand sarcastic scene complete.

But what is really fun is when a story—a writer—takes me by surprise. In a good way.

Not a throw the book, what a cop-out, what are you thinking or you are just being lazy or had a deadline or something that made you botch the end of your book—I am looking at you one particular writer who is one of my favorites in one of your early books that I am still grumpy about!

No surprise as in they are really going out on a limb in a good way, and with ridiculously good writing they take me with them, and it is an unexpected and glorious experience.

Even if I don’t like it, per se.

Like the boy dying.

…OK, yeah I don’t ever want that story to be a word different. And I don’t ever want to have unread that story. Un-have that experience.

I gained something with that experience. And it was hard and has been with me.

But I am truly better for it.

Because of both stories.

Both made me cry. In deep and healing ways.

And I wish there were more stories out there, like both of them.

The Brilliantly Unexpected.