Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
A couple of the bigger ongoing franchises (163X and Honorverse) have expanded by extending the focus to other characters and settings within the common framework and bringing in other authors.
It allows for a broader exploration of the franchise milieu or concepts without necessarily falling into the "yet another episode" fan service model.
Now, some concepts naturally lend themselves to the "variations on a theme" episode model (STAR TREK, police procedurals, legal and medical dramas) but other concepts and stories don't lend themselves to sequels and trying to graft followups to a one-and-done tends to leave a bad taste and often devalues the original or drives the audience away.
Some times it is best to leave well enough alone.
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And the romance industry began doing series by having the "next" be a brother or sister from the original story get his/her HEA. Or the children of the lucky first HEA couple. When I was growing up (lo those many eons ago) there was no such thing as series in romance. By definition, romance was HEA, so there wasn't much to say after that. These days, they can be more like family sagas where after the main character finds happiness, her drunk brother in law suddenly straightens up in the next novel and HE finds HEA. And so on.
I never used to read the "side-character" spinoffs in fantasy. I did so for probably the first time with Patricia Brigg's Alpha and Omega (the original series was the Mercy Thompson series).