Dear Author,
I want you to stop giving me tragic heroines. I want you to go back, recall every copy, and put the woman's name where the man's name is now. I want you to redact all the actions of the female character, and replace them with the actions of the male character. Do it. And I don't want to hear from you until you have done it.
Once you have cleaned your mess up, I want to talk about the Damage You Have Already Done. I want to explain to you, very patiently, that women who get their way in your stories do not have to be killed or punished for it. That if, for example, your female character bops along for 200 or 300 pages, and then, Realizes What She Has Missed, you do not need to have her slip into the abyss rather than accept her 200 (to 300) pages of loss. How about you have her, at the very least, ride off into the sunset? Better yet, might you let her shrug her shoulders and start writing her memoirs? Or move to a new town?
Or she could sing this little ditty, your song for today.
