great-expectations

Forgive me if this rambles a bit. It’s been a hellified week at work!

I was struck by something I saw in a review I read on Amazon this week. I don’t make a habit of reading them, but in this case it was a book I was thinking of buying.
One of the posted reviews did recommend the book, which they described as good. The writing was sound, the characters interesting. The problem with the book was that the reader ‘guessed the ending, and had read similar endings before’.

Really? :popcorn:

Let’s play with that. Here’s a scenario. You’re close to the end of the book. The hero and heroine are trapped and being threatened by an armed villain. As an author, what are your options?

1. Hero distracts villain so heroine can escape & she saves the day.
2. Heroine distracts villain so hero can escape & he saves the day.
3. Secondary character comes to rescue, saves all.
4. Deus ex machina: Suddenly—a volcano/earthquake/mudslide/army of zombies/take your pick.
5. Just as villain strikes the mortal blow, hero/heroine wakes up in shower, and it was just a dream.
6. Hero/heroine completes rite of passage at just that moment and is able to wield the secret power they’ve had all along.
7. Hero/heroine is killed, but protagonist later discovers it was really their twin brother/sister, not the one they loved at all.
8. Villain discovers he’s the second-cousin thrice removed of the hero/heroine’s grandmother’s shiek lover’s bastard baby boy and kills himself in a final act of grace.

We could go on, but honestly…is there any way to resolve this situation, or practically any other, that hasn’t been done somewhere, somehow? You may vary the circumstances, intensity, emotions, violence, or the characters involved. You could always kill off all your main characters. Leave the ending blank, and print a phone number for the reader to call to hear the ending–for a price (and risk assassination). :razz:

Do readers/reviewers sometimes seem to expect the near-impossible, especially within the limits of genre?
What do you do to keep basic storylines fresh again and again and again?