Current Project: Entwined (new title)
Status: At the big reveal
There are so many topics spinning in my brain these days that I can talk about. Deadlines, being behind on deadlines, edits, what happens to your brain when you stay up past 2 AM working...but I don't want to talk about any of those. I want to talk about The End.
My first series is coming to a close in January with the release of the third Stolen book, STOLEN SEDUCTION. I love this book and these characters, and I love how the story - all three stories - came to an end with this one. There was a time I wondered if I'd ever publish one book, so to see my third hitting the store shelves is a truly euphoric time for me. But at the same time, it's also bittersweet. I've devoted 3+ years to these characters and their lives. In some ways, I feel like they are alive. In my head they're as real as my neighbors, or my kids' teachers or the news anchor I see every night on TV. And even though I have new characters to keep me busy, and new stories to tell, letting these characters go is definitely harder than I thought. As I was setting up the blog tour for the release of STOLEN SEDUCTION, one interviewer asked if I'd write something about the end of the series and how I knew STOLEN SEDUCTION would be the last book. Many series these days go 4, 5, 6+ books, often, it seems, their longevity spurred on by book sales rather than on story. I'll admit, as a writer, I struggle with this question - when is a series done, and how many books is enough?
Every series is different, and originally when I wrote STOLEN FURY I didn't set out to write it as a series. But - as often happens - new characters popped up and I thought, you know, it would be fun to write his/her story. STOLEN HEAT and STOLEN SEDUCTION were spawned from that idea. But because these books are connected by characters and an art gallery in Miami - not an overarching series plot - I knew I didn't want this to be an ongoing series. I also knew that every series has a lifespan, and I never wanted to get to a point where writing these books was a chore or they lost the magic that made them special in the first place.
How do you really know when a series is done? I think the author knows. Yes, I left some secondary characters hanging throughout the Stolen Series that could pop up in new adventure books, and yes, their stories would be fun to read. But those characters were never part of the core main group in these books, and as such, I knew writing those books within this series would be stretching it. And I never wanted to stretch it. Not with these books. Not with any books if I can help it. As a reader I have stopped reading authors when it became clear they were more interested in stretching a series for the numbers rather than on letting a series end when it naturally should.
I talked about something similar earlier in the week over at the RomCom blog - specifically about movie series and sequels and how they're very often never as good as the first. You don't see that so much with book series. Often times the 2nd, 3rd, even the 4th books are as good if not better than the first. But readers aren't dumb. They know when a series has reached its ending, even if publishers don't.
There's a Josh Groban song that always makes me think of my Stolen books. In it he sings,
I will still be here
As long as you hold me
in your memory
Remember
when your dreams have ended
Time can be transcended
Just remember me
I'm with you
Whenever you tell
my story
For I am all I've done
Those words always make me feel better when I think of this series coming to an end. Yeah, it's sad. And yeah, I'll miss them, but the great part about books is I can dive into these characters' worlds anytime I want. The pages are always right there and they're never really gone. And even if I'm not writing their continuing sagas, the characters do live on. In a back corner of my mind. With all the other characters I've been lucky enough to share some time with. In that respect it's kind of fun. Makes me think they're having a party back there. And the guest list is very, very elite.
How about you? What do you think of series' time spans? How many books is too many books? And how/when do you know enough is enough?
In case you're interested, this is a link to that Josh Groban song. I'd have pasted it in, but I couldn't find the artist's video and this link has images from major movies. But you can at least listen to the song if you want.
5 comments:
I think I let go way easier than you do, Eli. By the time a book is written and published, two or three other ideas have come and gone. I guess I'm the love 'em and leave 'em type and my favorite book is almost always the one I'm writing.
As for series? I read several continuing characters in mysteries and usually enjoy the new plots and snippets of new information about characters I know pretty well. I can't say as I've read too many series that take a character from one book and spin him or her off into a second book and then someone else into a third book. When I finish the book I'm writing, I'll read your second book and see what happens to Pete and I'm looking forward to that.
Four times now, I've written two books back to back that are connected to each other through characters. I don't know if two books make a series. I've enjoyed doing it. Would I do it again? Sure. There are several Intrigue authors who have a long standing series going where characters are connected in some way, through a detective agency, for instance. I haven't come across an idea that would lend itself to such a thing although again, I'd be willing to take a stab at it if an interesting thread should occur to me.
As for knowing when it's time to call it a day? I agree with you. I think the author knows, although a receptive audience including editors with checkbooks have probably swayed more than one.
Beautiful song.
I like trilogies--as a reader, I can invest in a three book arc rather easily, I don't build up too many expectations, and it's easy to track down books so that I read in order. I also dig the number 3. A lot of my book ideas come to me in terms of trilogies.
I also like some longer series--Julia Spencer Flemming and Suzanne Brockmann top the list as does Kresley Cole and Sabrina Jefferies's now finished School for Heiresses series and Meg Cabot's princess diaries series which just ended. The nice thing about Princess diaries is that while there are continuing plot arcs, you can totally read them out of order. This is also true of Karen Marie Moning's Highland series. On the other hand, I love Kresley Cole, but her books really need to be read in order b/c there are so many interconnected threads and characters and complex world building. It is a testament to the talent of Suzanne Brockmann and Julia Spencer-Flemming that I hang with their long-running series. Both are best read in order, but not absolutely essential to do it that way, and both are relatively slow writers at a book a year. I think it helps that I discovered the series when there were already a ton of books for me to devour.
I think you can tell when too much is too much--and so can the reader. Ann M. Martin is a great example--she is an amazingly talented children's author, but her Babysitter's Club titles ended up spanning over a 100 books, and the series as a whole suffered as the characters were kept trapped in eighth grade forever. The pressure to keep producing was really high, and she has since written about the burn-out she felt. Similarly, there's a popular romantic mystery series that is now into the teens of book numbers, but I stopped reading around 8 mark because the characters aren't allowed any growth and the series isn't moving towards any sort of resolution for the characters. I think at certain point even die-hard fans want a HEA for favorite characters. This is why long running interconnected series like Kresley Cole's and Suzanne Brockmann's work so well because each book has a HEA--although some long running characters have been waiting a bit TOO long :)
Love the new title :) For me, it depends on how connected the books are. I've found that the more overlapping of characters that exists, the more interested I am. But ones that are/grow loosely connected by just being in the same world, I lose interest. Specifically with paranormals - I have a hard time when authors move on to a new group of people. I tend to think that three is a good number for most authors. Things can get old after too many in a lot of cases, but yet there are always those exceptions where I'm ravenous for more.
Interesting perspective, Eli.
I guess I jumped from writing my first series to knowing they would always be in the pages of the book if I wanted to revisit them. I don't remember going through a sad stage of letting them go.
When is a series finished? I've not been pursued by readers clamoring for more, more, more! Or by editors with wheelbarrows of money. So I can't address that scenario. LOL!
Artistically, my stories seem to set their own "end." My first three books are complete as stand-alone books but connected by the main characters. The series of nine books that I'm currently working on naturally seem to encompass the stories of each of a group of adopted siblings.
I do have an idea for a main character that could be an ongoing series, but that's so far down the writing road that I haven't really thought much beyond a beginning, let along an end.
I think you're right: the author will know.
As a reader, I think each series is different when it comes to when is enough, enough. Most series that I read are either mystery or SF/Fantasy and they tend to span multiple volumes (greater than 3). I've noticed that most of the mystery series tend to get a bit stagnant somewhere between book 5 and book 8 (depending on the author). I think that's partly due to the requirement that the main characters not change very much for fear of alienating readers. The SF/Fantasy series, on the other hand, usually have an overarching plot with a specific goal in mind and characters grow and change in some way over the course of the books (at least they do in the best of the series I like).
I think that's what's clever about a trilogy like your "Stolen" books and Suzanne Brockmann's books (as Bethany mentioned) -- you get closure with each book, yet there are still compelling characters and stories to fuel the next related book. You satisfy the reader and, hopefully, make them eager for more at the same time.
I don't know if any of you guys read Sue Grafton's "alphabet mysteries"--I gave up somewhere around the letter "E" or "F," I think--but I sometimes wonder if she's ever wanted to kick herself for having signed up to do 26 books with the same character(s). Granted, it's a very successful series, so it would be kind of like wearing golden handcuffs, if that were the case. ;-)
Post a Comment