Characters and Development
One of the things I love about reading series novels is you can see how characters develop over time.
The master on this for me was Sir Terry Pratchett with his Discworld novels. The development of Sam Vimes is magnificent.
Start with Guards! Guards! and work your way through to Raising Steam. Men at Arms is an excellent police procedural as well as a funny fantasy and I think it is where you see Vimes come into his own so much more.
Now for short stories and flash fiction this kind of development is harder to do because you literally have far less of a word count to do this in but it is possible.
You can have linked flash fiction/short stories where the same character turns up in more than one story, for example.
Each flash piece/short story must stand alone but when you read the two more more together you should be able to see how the character has developed, whether it is for good or not.
The advantage to the novel is you can see how the character develops over the course of one novel. A lot can and does happen over one book and even more in a series.
But whatever type of fiction you go for, it should be the characters who grab you and make you keep on reading. I know they do for me. I want to see how they develop and change even if I don’t always agree with how they do so.
The master on this for me was Sir Terry Pratchett with his Discworld novels. The development of Sam Vimes is magnificent.
Start with Guards! Guards! and work your way through to Raising Steam. Men at Arms is an excellent police procedural as well as a funny fantasy and I think it is where you see Vimes come into his own so much more.
Now for short stories and flash fiction this kind of development is harder to do because you literally have far less of a word count to do this in but it is possible.
You can have linked flash fiction/short stories where the same character turns up in more than one story, for example.
Each flash piece/short story must stand alone but when you read the two more more together you should be able to see how the character has developed, whether it is for good or not.
The advantage to the novel is you can see how the character develops over the course of one novel. A lot can and does happen over one book and even more in a series.
But whatever type of fiction you go for, it should be the characters who grab you and make you keep on reading. I know they do for me. I want to see how they develop and change even if I don’t always agree with how they do so.
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