Okay, okay, so I did just announce that I want to do a few more standalone novels, for the challenge in brevity.
One of my fantasy favorites, Patricia McKillip, has done nothing but standalone novels for the last decade or so. Even though there are series I wish she could finish.
(Pat, are you there? Another Cygnet book, pretty please. Does Nyx ever find Brand again?)
I’m hearing mixed messages from agents: some love standalone books because they’re less risk for publishers, some love series novels because they can build a reader fanbase very quickly.
The epic fantasy field has been known for its vast sagas. Even now, there are old favorites, new ‘classics’, and attempted manufactured hits bashing it out in the market, with readers torn between ‘I have to know what comes next’ and ‘I am so bloody tired of this damn series, will it never end?’
The erotic romance field is home to some sprawling series that seem to spin off secondary characters’ stories with dizzying results and near-clockwork predictability. Side character L and side character M may be bit players in one novel, the stars of the next, and major supporting characters in the rest of the series.
I’m just as guilty of it, and for the same reason: the characters force their way into the forefront.
No matter the genre, I will always have a fondness for series novels (other authors’ books, as well as writing them). I’ve even blogged about it.
I’m certainly not as literate or detailed an analyst as the amazing fantasy author Katharine Kerr, whose Deverry books were a mainstay of my 1990s reading. She has a great take on why she writes big sagas, which can be summed up as ‘characters and consequences’. Go here to read the whole post, which was also just featured on Tor.com’s site.
For the few readers who wander over into this blog, what’s your take? Do you love series novels? Hate ’em? If you’re a writer, do you write them?