Series, series and more damned series!

[Namekuseijin]

Why is it that anything created today has to automatically be a series?

You often listen of something like "the new series X by newcomer author Y". WTF?! Why should I care that some new unproven author has come up with some lame new series? Can we even call one book alone as part of a series? If it doesn't make any profit, will any further books in the "series" ever be published?

People used to write stories back then. If the story was good enough and characters became popular with the audience, they could eventually come back in further stories. It is the very case of Sherlock Holmes. It's not like Conan Doyle got up one day and said "well, I should make up a new series about a consulting detective". He was even annoyed at the popularity of the short stories and tried to kill the character and left it in the fridge for several years! Imagine some author/publisher doing it these days...

rant off.

[Quexos]

Obviously those authors' only concern is to sell and make money, they probably don't even care about what they write provided it sells. I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's all business, nothing more.

[JSWolf]

There is nothing worse then some lame reader ranting about books he's never seen, books he's never read, and books he thinks are lame that he's never seen or read.

[Quexos]

I don't think he's ranting on any books content but rather on the concept of making series which becomes more and more systematic. Or so I understand.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There is nothing worse then some lame reader ranting about books he's never seen, books he's never read, and books he thinks are lame that he's never seen or read.

[DiapDealer]

There is nothing worse then some lame reader ranting about books he's never seen, books he's never read, and books he thinks are lame that he's never seen or read.

Well... I can think at least one more thing that's worse.

I'm with you all the way, Namekuseijin! Just write a damn book and let its popularity determine if it warrants any follow-ups or not. The series-first mentality in genre fiction is annoying as hell.

[Namekuseijin]

I'm not ranting about books, I'm ranting about series. I'm complaining about the obsession in the industry today to not sell books, but series. You never get a new book, you get "chapter 1 on new series X".

They can even be good series, I'm just annoyed that I don't get a rounded story at once anymore, but in small doses. If it really sounds like videogame DLC for books, it is because it is exactly that.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Just write a damn book and let its popularity determine if it warrants any follow-ups or not. The series-first mentality in genre fiction is annoying as hell.

Precisely!

[afa]

I love series.

I'm a boring guy in that sense. When I find something I like, I enjoy revisiting it. This is why I listen to my favorite albums several times, my favorite songs even more, my favorite TV shows often enough that I have practically memorized the dialogues...

I enjoy series because it not only allows me to revisit the characters and the world I like, but revisit them in a new setting, rather than exactly the same thing again and again.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

Why is it that anything created today has to automatically be a series?

You often listen of something like "the new series X by newcomer author Y". WTF?! Why should I care that some new unproven author has come up with some lame new series? Can we even call one book alone as part of a series? If it doesn't make any profit, will any further books in the "series" ever be published?

People used to write stories back then. If the story was good enough and characters became popular with the audience, they could eventually come back in further stories. It is the very case of Sherlock Holmes. It's not like Conan Doyle got up one day and said "well, I should make up a new series about a consulting detective". He was even annoyed at the popularity of the short stories and tried to kill the character and left it in the fridge for several years! Imagine some author/publisher doing it these days...

rant off.

I agree! Especially those authors who don't tie up any real story arcs by the end of that first book. WTF.

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by afa

I enjoy series because it not only allows me to revisit the characters and the world I like, but revisit them in a new setting, rather than exactly the same thing again and again.

I love series too, when they're well written. And a well written one will have each story with a beginning, middle and end, as well as an on-going story arc. I love revisiting a universe, and characters I've come to like reading about. (Until the stories stall, or start repeating themselves. Then I bail out.)

That said, the ones I don't like are 'installments', where a story is started but has no middle or end. Each 'ending' is usually a cliffhanger to get you to the next book. I avoid those and "To Be Continued" in regular books and fanfic as well. (Especially since a lot of stories in fanfic are never completed. It's too easy to write the characters into a bad situation, have no clue how to resolve it, and just walk away from it.)

I've been lucky in that I haven't come across many books in a series that weren't pretty much self contained. It's one of the things I look for in a review, is if someone complains that the 'story just stops' or 'ends on a cliffhanger.' Those don't get bought by me unless I know that the ending is already available.

Otherwise, series with universes I like make me very happy!

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by DuskyRose

I love series too, when they're well written. And a well written one will have each story with a beginning, middle and end, as well as an on-going story arc. I love revisiting a universe, and characters I've come to like reading about. (Until the stories stall, or start repeating themselves. Then I bail out.)

That said, the ones I don't like are 'installments', where a story is started but has no middle or end. Each 'ending' is usually a cliffhanger to get you to the next book. I avoid those and "To Be Continued" in regular books and fanfic as well. (Especially since a lot of stories in fanfic are never completed. It's too easy to write the characters into a bad situation, have no clue how to resolve it, and just walk away from it.)

I've been lucky in that I haven't come across many books in a series that weren't pretty much self contained. It's one of the things I look for in a review, is if someone complains that the 'story just stops' or 'ends on a cliffhanger.' Those don't get bought by me unless I know that the ending is already available.

Otherwise, series with universes I like make me very happy!

^This


+1

[DiapDealer]

Nobody's really disagreeing that a series can't be great. Just that not every single story/idea/author warrants a series. Write a story. If it turns out you need more than one book to properly tell that story (or that your readers are clamoring for more)... then so be it. Fine. It's the authors/publishers who start with "$erie$", and then figure out how best to fill that $erie$ up with books that annoy me. That's backwards to me.

Publish a couple of stand-alone books first... see if you have an audience. Test the waters. Then maybe consider tackling a series.

It's like unpublished authors are trying to hit that this-will-set-me-up-for-life home-run their very first at-bat (and I'm sure publishers encourage that).

Story first. Series second.

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Story first. Series second.

It should always be story first, in a series or stand-alone. Agreement there.

But I can't say I've seen a lot of series come out where they're not complete. (Or I'm just very good at avoiding them the unfinished ones.)

I don't see anything wrong with getting a good start on a series with a character with a larger story-arc and coming out with them all at once. Hopefully, by then the author will have their world building down and have been able to make any adjustments/corrections to the earlier stories so they can be consistent within their own universe.

If the first book tanks, they're not going to sell the others in the series anyway, so see it as more of a risk to the publisher than the customer. And considering how long it can be between books, if I'm into it, I'd rather the second/third/fourth book now than (sometimes years) later. (Or never.)

What would be an example of a series people find annoying to have been released as such?

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by DuskyRose

It should always be story first, in a series or stand-alone. Agreement there.

But I can't say I've seen a lot of series come out where they're not complete. (Or I'm just very good at avoiding them the unfinished ones.)

I don't see anything wrong with getting a good start on a series with a character with a larger story-arc and coming out with them all at once. Hopefully, by then the author will have their world building down and have been able to make any adjustments/corrections to the earlier stories so they can be consistent within their own universe.

If the first book tanks, they're not going to sell the others in the series anyway, so see it as more of a risk to the publisher than the customer. And considering how long it can be between books, if I'm into it, I'd rather the second/third/fourth book now than (sometimes years) later. (Or never.)

What would be an example of a series people find annoying to have been released as such?

Hate to say it cause she's my favorite author but Mercedes Lackey's most recent Valdemar series is not doing it for me.

[mr ploppy]

It's easier to write about the same characters than to have to come up with new ones for each story