The open ended series

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

...in '77, a fantasy fan who didn't want to re-read Tolkien again really only had Donaldson and Brooks to choose from...

Be grateful you had those three. The only fantasy book we had was The Hobbit, and that was basically it (well, except for fairytales, of which there were plenty. I had literally a hundred or so fairytale books in childhood). I got to read LoTR for the first time in 1994, when my father bought it for me in the UK (he was a long-distance sailor). It, and ergo the whole fantasy genre, was forbidden in the Soviet Union (a fact of which I wasn't aware before reading it, of course).

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by DNSB

One of my pet peeves is that author who does a trilogy, writes the third book and then comes out with a 4th book 6 months later. ...

Absolutely agree. I may be wrong, but it seems like I read that Dean Koontz 's Jane Hawk series was going to be a trilogy and it ended up being five books. And, honestly, the last three books felt like filler than anything else. Same thing with his Odd Thomas series. That series may have been planned to be open-ended, but it got really old by about book 4 (at least in my estimation). I don't know why I feel compelled to finish a series just because I started it. (No more Dean Koontz planned for my future.)

[library addict]

I don't mind open ended series so long as the author knows the overall end point so whole books don't feel like "filler." I also don't mind if a series starts as a trilogy and keeps going so long as the author does take the plot in a different direction and doesn't undo whatever closure was achieved with the original trilogy.

Or, as with the already mentioned In Death series, each book works as a stand-alone. The trick with this type of series is that the characters need to grow and change. I will lose interest if the main characters don't evolve as a series continues.

As a side note, the In Death series was originally set to only be a trilogy.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

It, and ergo the whole fantasy genre, was forbidden in the Soviet Union (a fact of which I wasn't aware before reading it, of course).

Something that might suggest the value of Fantasy Genre. Fairy tales even in olden days sometimes were a serious way of smuggling truth past the "rulers".

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Something that might suggest the value of Fantasy Genre. Fairy tales even in olden days sometimes were a serious way of smuggling truth past the "rulers".

True. Overthrowing all those Dark Lords? Can't allow that. (Had Tolkien put his Mordor in the west, the LOTR would have been quite popular with the regime, I'm sure). Science fiction was considered safer and we even had some Western authors translated - Asimov, Clarke, Simak, for example. No Star Wars, naturally. We managed to watch that via Finnish TV, which was visible in Northern Estonia at the time (thank you, Finland), but I was too young to draw any parallels with real life.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I read the Twilight Series so you don't need to. I regarded it as research. I've read other "modern" Vampire books, some school settings. I think Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmila), George Macdonald (Lilith) and Bram Stoker (Dracula) were right. Exterminate them (1872, 1895 and 1897).
I quite liked a book of GRR Martin Short Stories my son bought me. He then bought me the 1st book of the series. I did finish it and told him to never buy me another. This was before the TV series.
I have all of the Wheel of Time but gave up before reading the last one Sanderson wrote.
I have all three sets of the Thomas Covenant books. I've not read the last one. I did start. I liked the Short stories with Daughter of Regals in it, and the two Mirror books, mostly, though there are a couple of gratuitous scenes I'd have cut.

I assumed that with Robert Jordan it was the publisher wanting him to spin it out. It would be good at four or five books.

I did read the first Twilight book. I'm pretty obviously not part of the targeted audience.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DNSB

One of my pet peeves is that author who does a trilogy, writes the third book and then comes out with a 4th book 6 months later. My wife is currently reading a series that is up to book 10 of a "trilogy". The sad part is that in book 3, she says the series was pretty much wrapped up. Then book 4 went off in a totally different direction so about the only consistency was the setting and character names. The series seems popular enough that the local library makes it available.

I've read a couple authors where that kind of worked out. Ringo's Black Tide Rising series, for example. The series was suppose to end with book 3 which was a bit open ended. Ringo decided to write a book 4 to explicitly wrap everything up. It probably wasn't as strong as the first three books.

Books 5 and 6 were basically following what happened to a character we last saw in book 1. It was co-written and wasn't nearly as good, but still I had wondered what happened to that character, so I'm not sorry the books were written. I actually prefer that to the Jordan approach of trying to weave the stories of six different characters together in one long narrative.

[haydnfan]

In defense of the Wheel of Time it was never an open ended series. Robert Jordan wrote the ending at the same time he wrote the beginning. I know this because

1. RJ has said it in an interview.
2. Sanderson has repeated it.
3. Sanderson has also said that the very end is Jordan's writing.
4. To the less casual reader it is apparent because the beginning and the end of the series both give off strong Lord of the Rings vibe with early Jordan plot, characters and themes.

Robert Jordan didn't keep writing aimlessly until the money dried up. He was very ill, and he had difficulty resolving the plot threads and character arcs as he has admitted himself. He was trying but it was just too much for him in his state.

It is also important to understand a bit about writing. As GRRM has said there are two types of writers: architects and gardeners. The architect plans out the plot and characters in advance. The gardeners find out where the story goes as they write it. They both have strengths and weaknesses. The gardener might meander quite a bit or have an unsatisfactory ending, but that doesn't mean that they were just milking a series until the money ran out.

I find that criticism to be mean-spirited and inaccurate.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Be grateful you had those three. The only fantasy book we had was The Hobbit, and that was basically it (well, except for fairytales, of which there were plenty. I had literally a hundred or so fairytale books in childhood). I got to read LoTR for the first time in 1994, when my father bought it for me in the UK (he was a long-distance sailor). It, and ergo the whole fantasy genre, was forbidden in the Soviet Union (a fact of which I wasn't aware before reading it, of course).

Ouch! You have my sympathies.

I'm generally OK with whatever an author feels compelled to do RE their various series. I just wish that 1) the series mindset wasn't the de facto standard for speculative genres, and 2) authors/publishers were more upfront about the fact that they're launching a "franchise". I'd like to read more fantasy, for instance, but I'm not interested in starting any unfinished (and often overly ambitious) series' with open-ended installments right now.

It's also pretty hard these days to get a straight answer about whether series books have satisfying endings or not. It's not in the publisher/authors's best interest for potential readers to have the requisite knowledge to decide whether to read now or wait for series completion; and fans who've already read them can't seem to stop themselves from waffling about endings because they want more people to read them right NOW!

[Apache]

Originally Posted by haydnfan

It is also important to understand a bit about writing. As GRRM has said there are two types of writers: architects and gardeners. The architect plans out the plot and characters in advance. The gardeners find out where the story goes as they write it. They both have strengths and weaknesses. The gardener might meander quite a bit or have an unsatisfactory ending, but that doesn't mean that they were just milking a series until the money ran out.

I find that criticism to be mean-spirited and inaccurate.

“One day I was speeding along at the typewriter, and my daughter - who was a child at the time - asked me, "Daddy, why are you writing so fast?" And I replied, "Because I want to see how the story turns out!”
― Louis L'Amour

Apache

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by haydnfan

In defense of the Wheel of Time it was never an open ended series. Robert Jordan wrote the ending at the same time he wrote the beginning. I know this because

1. RJ has said it in an interview.
2. Sanderson has repeated it.
3. Sanderson has also said that the very end is Jordan's writing.
4. To the less casual reader it is apparent because the beginning and the end of the series both give off strong Lord of the Rings vibe with early Jordan plot, characters and themes.

Robert Jordan didn't keep writing aimlessly until the money dried up. He was very ill, and he had difficulty resolving the plot threads and character arcs as he has admitted himself. He was trying but it was just too much for him in his state.

It is also important to understand a bit about writing. As GRRM has said there are two types of writers: architects and gardeners. The architect plans out the plot and characters in advance. The gardeners find out where the story goes as they write it. They both have strengths and weaknesses. The gardener might meander quite a bit or have an unsatisfactory ending, but that doesn't mean that they were just milking a series until the money ran out.

I find that criticism to be mean-spirited and inaccurate.

I never said Jordan milked his series for money, nor do I think he did. He was just unable to resolve it, as you yourself admitted. That's all. As to Martin, his problem is obviously not the money, but rather something like the writer's block. He just doesn't want to write ASOIAF anymore, but is kind of trapped by its popularity.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'm generally OK with whatever an author feels compelled to do RE their various series. I just wish that 1) the series mindset wasn't the de facto standard for speculative genres, and 2) authors/publishers were more upfront about the fact that they're launching a "franchise". I'd like to read more fantasy, for instance, but I'm not interested in starting any unfinished (and often overly ambitious) series' with open-ended installments right now.

It's also pretty hard these days to get a straight answer about whether series books have satisfying endings or not. It's not in the publisher/authors's best interest for potential readers to have the requisite knowledge to decide whether to read now or wait for series completion; and fans who've already read them can't seem to stop themselves from waffling about endings because they want more people to read them right NOW!

It's even worse with self-pubs. There are many, many indies who start what seems to be a huge and ambitious series, the first book is published... and that's it. Nothing more. Yes, life happened, or the author lost interest, or the book didn't sell, but why not say it openly then? I've even written to a couple of authors and asked what their plans are re the sequels. They didn't answer me. Leaving the readers hanging like that is what I don't get. If you can't/don't want to write anymore, say it. People will understand.

[DiapDealer]

Indie or tradpub: I want big, bold words in the description of the first book in a new (planned) series declaring, "THIS BOOK DOES NOT CONTAIN A COMPLETE STORY."

And no... resolving a minor plot arc somewhere toward the end of a book, and then moving on with more tease-ey, cliffhang-ery content clearly intended to sell the next book does not count. I want to read books that have beginnings, middles and comprehensive conclusions. And I want to know before committing if that's what I'm going to get.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

It's even worse with self-pubs. There are many, many indies who start what seems to be a huge and ambitious series, the first book is published... and that's it. Nothing more. Yes, life happened, or the author lost interest, or the book didn't sell, but why not say it openly then? I've even written to a couple of authors and asked what their plans are re the sequels. They didn't answer me. Leaving the readers hanging like that is what I don't get. If you can't/don't want to write anymore, say it. People will understand.

Some writers have no conscious control over the stories they are writing. If nothing comes up out of their subconscious minds, they have no story to write. The process is unpredictable, and cannot be planned out over the long term. Stories come, stories go. The ones that go may go indefinitely, or come back again at some point in the future. In such cases, the authors are left hanging as much as their readers. What can they say other than "My muse has abandoned me"?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by rkomar

What can they say other than "My muse has abandoned me"?

I think it would be great if they just came right out and said that. But they never do. They waffle and make other excuses, or they say nothing.

I'm fine with authors running out of inspiration. It's the years' worth of prevaricating (or silence) about it that tends to piss me off. "I can't write away from home, and I'm always away from home promoting my non-book stuff."