Series—Keeping Things Fresh Without Alarming Readers
By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
I’m an avid reader of mystery writer M.C. Beaton’s (pen name for Marion Chesney’s) books and have been for many years. I keep track of her releases and order them when they become available. She writes a few series under different names, but the Hamish MacBeth series is my favorite and has had a huge influence on me. Beaton’s books are the reason I’m writing cozy mysteries.
One of the reasons I track her books, apart from my own enjoyment, is because she’s successfully kept this particular series going for 30 books. (My series with the most books is only at 6 books…working on the 7th now). And Beaton has not only retained her readers, she’s increased her readership. She’s recently become active on social media (years ago I couldn’t even find a photo or contact info for her online…when I was already all over the place online) and that seems to have also helped gain her readers.
I remembered the other day that she had a fairly recent Hamish release and I hopped on Amazon to order the book. Usually her books are highly rated by readers who are just as avid as I am. This time I was surprised to see some bad reviews and scrolled down out of curiosity…interested to see what readers were saying. This isn’t my usual approach, since readers are terrible about giving spoilers on Amazon, but I wanted to see what they were saying this time.
Readers who gave negative reviews mentioned an increase in the number of bodies, a darker feel to the (previously cozy) series…a couple even saying it read like noir, complaints about out-of-character behavior by the beloved sleuth, and even readers claiming they thought the book had been ghost-written (!).
Of course, this made me want to read the book even more, to see if I’d get the same impression, myself.
So…this is a very long-running, very successful series. Maybe Beaton wanted to make some changes to keep the stories fresh or to keep her interest in the series from waning. Some readers may have been more responsive to her changes than others. Maybe the changes happened too swiftly for the series? This all made me ask:
What do you do when you’re wanting to keep a long-running series fresh?
It’s probably more difficult to…
Change the protagonist’s personality. Readers were saying that Hamish’s personality seemed different—that his response to stressful situations was inappropriate. Personality changes can be pulled off, but there needs to be good reasons for the changes that readers can believe.
Change the tone of the books. Tricky. Readers were saying that this book had a “noir” feel to it…and it’s a cozy. If the whole rest of the series is light and you introduce a dark book or vice versa—there may be some pushback.
Other ideas that might be easier to try:
Introducing new and possibly recurring characters into a series. Obviously, these would present different opportunities for interaction with the protagonist—conflict, friendship, love interest, antagonist.
Adding an ongoing conflict/trial/challenge for the protagonist to address. This could come in the form of another character or a health, job, or emotional challenge.
Adding a continuing storyline. If we haven’t had a continuing storyline from book to book, we could consider adding one to offer the opportunity for character growth.
Showing a different side to the main character (but one that fits in with his or her overall personality).
Taking the characters on a road trip (be careful here).
Providing opportunities for character growth (particularly with a continuing storyline, as mentioned above).
Of course, if all else fails and we really feel boxed in by our series and are longing to do something very different, the very safest course might be…to start another series.
Have you got a long series of books? How have you managed series change? As a reader, have you noticed instances where an author has pulled it off…and where they’ve struggled?
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