When Your Stand-Alone is Actually a Series

(Over the last two years, I have told about 6 people that their stand-alone fantasy is NOT a standalone. They had all of the following symptoms. I know that editors sometimes say they’re looking for standalones instead of series, and that it can be harder to sell a series because publishers may be commitment-phobic. But if your story is actually not a standalone, cramming it into that format will not help it sell. It needs to be the length it needs to be to tell the story you need to tell. So I came up with this list.)

Your scenes are excessively shorts, only 2-3 pages each
You feel like you can’t tell the whole character arc
Readers are confused because you have no backstory or world-building
You are stuck on the midpoint because it is actually the climax of bk 1
Your villains are too simplistic
You can’t explain what happens in your book in a paragraph or less
Your rules of magic change in the middle of bk 1
You don’t have time to show the character leaning necessary skills.
There are more than six major plot threads.
Two worlds are colliding and you have to do worldbuilding for both of them.