Feature and Follow Friday: (5) #FF : Short Story Companions
Feature and Follow Friday is a Blog Meme hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee’s View. The basic concept is that each week, there is a post prompt, and we each post on that topic. And each week, a blogger is featured on the host’s blogs. The point of this whole thing is to help grow followers and to generally create a sense of community and we all get to know each other and follow each other, et cetera. There is a more elaborate list of rules on the hosts’ sites if you want to read more specifics!
So this week’s prompt:
Short Stories (as companions to a series): What do you love about them and hate about them?
One of the things that I love about short stories as a companion to a book series is that they can often fill in some of the holes. A lot of the time, the companion short stories will answer some unanswered questions that I have been left with in between books or after reading a series and waiting for the release of a new book, et cetera. Often, they can give background information about a character that will help make some of the things that that character does make more sense, or make their actions seem more reasonable. Otherwise, it will fill in a gap in time between one book and the next.
Unfortunately, where the negative comes in is when I accidentally read the short story first, not realizing it is a part of a series. This, sadly, has happened to me more times than I would care to admit. Once with a short as part of the Razorland series. And then with a few other series’ that I can’t seem to remember right at the moment. Suffice it to say, now I make sure that short stories are not a part of a series and don’t fall in the middle of a series that I have not read yet before I purchase them now!
What do you think about companion shorts? Have you ever accidentally and unknowingly read a middle of a series short before reading the rest of the series that was meant to come before it like I have? And if you have, are you willing to admit it to the rest of the blogger community like I have? 
