It was just what I wanted ... or was it?

I recently finished reading a popular novel.  It was clever and gripping.  It was intriguing.  I quite enjoyed it.

Well, I mostly enjoyed it.  The main character ends up in several dangerous situations.  And every time she was able to escape unharmed I breathed a sigh of relief.  It was just what I wanted.  But when that happened for the fourth or fifth time I was actually surprised.  Was there no real danger after all?

Admittedly, I read books differently now that I am writing.  I'm constantly trying to learn how to make my craft better.  So I do question things a lot, breaking things apart from a writer's perspective, to understand how to construct them for myself.  It makes my reading experience very different, in some ways better, in some ways worse.

Understanding this, I reevaluated the lack of real danger in the book I read.  It didn't sit right for the danger to never be realized.  But there was conflict of a different nature.  I suppose the author wanted to focus on that.  Also, it is the nature of this book for the reader to imagine where the story goes over the next twenty years or so after the book ends.  If the outside danger had been real, the future would be left far too uncertain.  As it is, the reader can be quite assured of a positive future outcome.

I really do like happy endings.  Since I can make sense of the author's decisions, I imagine it should all be settled.  Why then do I wish she had put more pitfalls in?  Maybe it's the realist in me.  If my life can have troubles, and I overcome them, what shouldn't some fictional character have them as well?

To end my ramblings of the mind . . . I read to learn, and I think I am hesitant to have things fall apart for my characters, but I shouldn't feel that way.  Pitfalls will make them better characters, just as pitfalls make us better people.