World, Writing, Wealth discussion
All Things Writing & Publishing
>
Trilogies and series
Having written a series of seven books, another series of three books (possibly to go to four books) and a series of two books (possibly to go to three books), here is what I would answer to your questions, Ian:
(a) Not all books in a series need to be of the same length. I write each book in a series to a length adequate to cover the various story arcs I planned for that book, while providing continuity to the series. In my seven-book series, the longest one had 903 pages, while the shortest one had about 500 pages (don't remember off hand).
(b) I put enough back story at the start of each following book in a series so that the reader can orient himself/herself quickly before diving deeper in the book. I however do my best to show that back story in the most interesting, refreshing way possible.
(c) Each book in a series should at least complete the story arcs started in it, while also pointing at more to come in the sequel(s). I however hate cliff-hangers and do my best to avoid them.
(a) Not all books in a series need to be of the same length. I write each book in a series to a length adequate to cover the various story arcs I planned for that book, while providing continuity to the series. In my seven-book series, the longest one had 903 pages, while the shortest one had about 500 pages (don't remember off hand).
(b) I put enough back story at the start of each following book in a series so that the reader can orient himself/herself quickly before diving deeper in the book. I however do my best to show that back story in the most interesting, refreshing way possible.
(c) Each book in a series should at least complete the story arcs started in it, while also pointing at more to come in the sequel(s). I however hate cliff-hangers and do my best to avoid them.
I agree with Michel that the length doesn't really matter, however what's in the book really does.Again I'll agree with Michel about story arcs. The key is to finish an arc well enough that the reader feels satisfied, but with enough information about upcoming unresolved plot points that they're still keen to keep reading the series.
As a reader I try not to pick up subsequent books in a trilogy of series before reading the others. I know some people do, and I've always wondered why.
Having said that, I try to cover a few bits and pieces of the backstory, but recapping it in detail is impossible.
As a reader I have mixed feelings about series. One series I was reading was quite good, but it was a genre that I got burned out on halfway through the series and I will probably never finish it.
Another series seems to be on permanent hiatus; I have read the first five and several years have passed since the last book was released. This has given me enough time to work out the ending for myself......I've just told myself the story of what I think will happen. Since I am pretty satisfied with my own continuation I don't think I will ever read those last two books if they ever get published.
I am considering starting a new series that consists of four trilogies......but these are all published, no waiting.
Holly has a good point about production. If you start a series, and it takes forever to get the next book out, any enthusiasm for the earliest one will have evaporated. The two series I have published at least missed this problem because I had everything written out more or less in second/third draft form before any came out. That was partly because I had the trilogies first as single big books, but I decided to split them. For one of them, this was reasonably obvious because the three parts had seriously different settings and problems, with the overall theme uniting them, and the history of the characters.
I prefer the books to be similar lengths so they look all nice and neat lined up on a shelf :D. I wrote my series books about the same length, with the exception of a prequel, which is meant to be more like a companion to the series.I don't personally like cliffhangers. I ended my series books in a way that provided closure for most things addressed in the story, but I still left loose ends/uncertainty to be settled later. After the last page of each story, I included a one-page teaser excerpt for the next book. I think these excerpts were seen by some as cliffhangers.
As far as backstory, I try to keep it as brief as possible. I think information that is important to the story should be included but I don't think a pages-long recap is necessary.
The second book of each of my trilogies starts with one page that, while not exactly a recap of the first, introduces the "carry over " problem, essentially as a lead-up to what a specific character is going to do next, but also explaining why. I don't know whether that is a good idea or not, but it seemed OK as part of the longer initial draft (when it was one book) so I left it as that.Accordingly, I do not have a one page teaser for the next book, because it would not give much of an indication of what the next one was going to be.
I grew up reading fantasy series, so I've no problems with them. I tend to like it better when the books are of similar length, but if a series has various lengths (Dark Tower, or even Harry Potter) I'm generally fine with it.
I think the reader in me hates series. On one hand, when you have a winning formula, you as the writer can't stray from it or you tick off your readers, but the reader in me gets bored reading the same story told over and over again. With different characters it becomes a little tolerable, but if the same characters are going through the same formulaic adventure time after time, I get tired of it.Another thing that gets me is the constant reminders to the previous installments. If I read the previous books in a series, I don't want to be constantly reminded of what I already read. Some authors are subtle about it, but one that sticks out is Frank Baum's Oz series (yes, I've been slowing reading those books :D ) where he just nonstops brings in characters from previous stories for no reason and spend far too many words reminding us what those characters did the last time we saw them. Two thoughts on this, if a series has each book encapsulated from the others, then I don't need to be reminded or "caught up;" but if it's more of a serial where each book builds on the previous, then I shouldn't be picking it up anywhere but Book 1 in which case I know what came before (if I don't remember, then frankly I didn't care enough about that detail to remember when I first read it).
On the opposite side of that, I read a book recently labelled as "Book 1" of a series, but there was so much referencing to a backstory that came out of a previous series. Even people who reviewed it seemed confused if there was a series that came before or not.
I agree the series should not be the same person doing the same sort of things. The worst problem I had was with what could be regarded as a five book series. The first one I wrote was intended as a stand alone, and it was my effort at a sort of "War and Peace". Amongst other things, I had a Roman legatus in the 23rd century, bringing with him two alien warships to deal with the remains of a battered alien squadron that had fled a previous war, so that suggested an earlier story to explain how he got there, which in turn ended up a trilogy. (If Lucas can start with episode 4, why can't I? was my thinking.) But when I thought about it, the way I started the trilogy, to give me the chance to also explain the scientific background, there had to be a greater over-arching problem for the whole to be logically self-consistent, so I had to tweak the end of episode 4 (which was actually published after the trilogy, so no cheating readers). I am quite happy with the overall result, but not the way it arose. I most definitely do not recommend that approach to anyone else.
A serial/series/trilogy doesn't automatically mean cliffhangers. To use another medium as an example, there's plenty of episodic TV for instance, which tells a larger arc but where each episode, other than the odd two-parter, is largely self-contained and tells it's own story which wraps up with a fair degree of it's own satisfying conclusion. Then there's other forms of episodic TV, such as soaps and miniseries, where cliffhangers are a given and drive audience retention. Both work, but they may not both work for the same audience.I detest cliffhangers, as do a lot of other readers. They don't make me want to read the next book, they make me think either "ugh, money grab" or "ugh, author couldn't figure out how to wrap this up" and either way mark the author off my buy list. But there's plenty of readers who love them. Really, plenty, and they are prolific readers, google H.M. Ward's Ferro Family success story for proof. Or maybe Amanda Hocking.
I could say the same about love triangles: they're traditionally a big seller, but a lot of people, including me, rabidly hate them and will low rate a book that springs one on me unawares.
There's really no right or wrong there I guess, sometimes when faced with a binary choice you just have to pick one and run with it, being aware that you'll lose some segment of readers either way - but that you're giving another segment exactly what they want.
And be careful with your marketing targeting, so you actually hit the right markets, the ones who want what you're selling.
(a) I've enjoyed series with variable length books and series with books of similar length, and I've seen both sorts be successful. So, I don't think it matters much.(b) I would recommend keeping 'bridging' material to a minimum. What I'm finding with my own series is that each book has a setup anyway and I'm just using the setup to bridge from the past, but primarily the setup is for setting up the current book.
When I first designed my book, it was a trilogy, that then expanded to five books, each of three acts. So I had 15 acts. Each act ends dramatically on a major story turning point. I ended up writing each act as a book, as they are approx 210-250+ pages each and for a variety of reasons I went that way. The main one being marketing tempo. I can guarantee a <250 page book each year. But I would hate to try and market a 700 page book in an ongoing series every three years...
(c) Given my books end on a major TP, the endings are all dramatic. My books are also very tightly sequenced. Book 2 starts within 30 minutes of book 1, and Book 3 starts within 30 minutes of Book 2 and so on.
Are they cliffhangers? With a TP, something is changed in a major and irrevocable way that drives the story forward, but there is substantial openess. Some reviewers have called them cliffhangers. I'm not 100% sure, I would suggest they are one step back from cliff-hangers.
But as Krazykiwi suggests above, I may need to be sensitive to marketing that aspect.
I also hate cliffhangers, so I try to end each book in a series with and ending. Something has been achieved, and that particular whatever won't happen again, but I often leave a clue that something else will, and an indication of what that something else is.
Hi Ian,That's what I try to do.
For me a cliffhanger would be...
Or something along the lines of.Bill reached out his hand, taking the overlord's plans from the robot. He dashed for the landing platform where his ship awaited.
Laser fire sizzled through the air over his head, sparks flying from the space station's bulkhead. The overlord's guards were hard on his tail. He burst out onto the empty platform.
His ship was gone.
"Damn - I knew I should never have trusted that hustler from Hyperion."
A war drone descended to the platform, its weapons swinging around toward him. He stared into their barrels.
"What the hell," he said, lifting his blast rifle.
"The End" The story of Bill Gunmaster will continue in Spacefarer #6.
A good example of what I try to do is from Leonie's last BoM
Graeme wrote: "Or something along the lines of.Bill reached out his hand, taking the overlord's plans from the robot. He dashed for the landing platform where his ship awaited.Laser fire sizzled through the air ..."
Yes, that's a cliffhanger.
And that's what I was hoping I'd done, Ian. Not a cliffhanger, but a point where it's a turning point in the story, that hopefully gives the reader the satisfaction of an ending, but the desire to read on. It's quite a balancing act.
Hi Leonie (smiles) yes indeed.I also try to hit the balancing act of providing enough closure to give satisfaction while leaving enough open to draw the reader forward.
Well, you succeeded Leonie. I think that was very well done.
As a reader, i want characters I can fall in love with and look for more stories about them or their world. I don't want cliffhangers. A story arc that is complete yet leaves more to happen such as Leonie did in Frontier Defiant works. In many ways it is like Harry Potter - the evil is out there but school is out for the summer. In those Situations I like knowing how many books i need to budget for. I Also Like Being Able to Learn More About A Character in Multiple Books Which Are Themselves a Complete Story, such as Bujold with her Miles novels.
I Really Hate it When An Author Doesn't Complete The Next Book Within A Reasonable Amount Of Time. Patrick Rothfuss Comes Immediately To Mind. At The Same Time I Have Read Some Series Where It Feels Like The author Has Just Rushed to Get Out The next Book. I Stopped reading James Patterson Awhile Ago because The Books Read Like A Formula rushed To completion.
( Apologies for caps. Using a fire tablet and it keeps wanting fo capitalize words, or make my keyboard disappear.)
The "school out for summer" is an interesting way to look at that. I think mine would qualify nicely for that description.The caps were novel, if nothing else :-)
Ah yes, the missing next book. I feel your pain. Melanie Rawn....I have given up waiting for the third book of a series. I figure twenty years is long enough.
Twenty years??? If you can't finish a series in prompt time, you should not write it like that, in my opinion.
Dang, I thought the all caps contained a secret message :D. And 20 years...ouch. I'm trying to remember which book I saw on goodreads that was promised to release in five years. Judging by the reviews, readers were not happy at all.
Songs of Fire and Ice - still waiting - at least there is the divergent from books Game of Thrones TV
The Captal's Tower is the book I've been waiting for. The series started so well, too....Mind you, Patrick Rothfuss is also taking a very, very long time to write his third Kingkiller book. Sigh...
I just saw a perfect example of this, so I thought I'd explain my though proces as a reader. I clicked an ad (yes, a GR ad) because the few brief lines of synopsis looked so interesting. I get to the GR page, and the longer synopsis there is even more enticing - but I can now see it's book 1 of a trilogy.
Ok, I still might check it out.
Then I scroll down to the reviews, and read some of the longer ones: The book seems thoughtful, well written, and well liked. But it's now clear it ends on a cliffhanger with major issues unresolved. Meh, I can handle cliffhangers if I know they're coming and I can read right through it to the next book if I like it well enough (but the book's rapidly fallen from "Oh, I must have this" down, right past "Oh this looks good, I will try book 1" all the way to "If the look inside really grabs me, I might still buy it."
The killer: The book was published in 2013. I click through to the series list, and.. the other two books are still not out.
I am not going to buy that book. I'm not prepared to sit on a 4 year old cliffhanger in hopes that it might someday be resolved. The synopsis looks so good, I did put it on my maybe list - which I remember to check about once a year to see if I the maybe's are still worth buying, but I'm actually not holding out hope for it.
And that author is almost certainly not coming out ahead in that ad campaign.
Moral: The issue is not necessarily series-ness or cliffhanger-iness, it's follow through. And don't waste money promoting book one of something unless you at least have book 2 out, and expect the promo to really take off when the series is actually completed, because those of us out reading (and paying!) have been burnt enough times, we don't necessarily trust authors to finish anything until we can actually see it.
Great post, Krazykiwi. I started watching some shows on Netflix, only to be majorly disappointed when I found out they ended on cliffhangers--after the first season--with no future shows in the works! I suppose it happens with books too. It helps to know in advance what you might be getting into, or how long of a wait might be expected.
Krazykiwi makes a key point (Agree with Marie too).Hence why I'm working hard on release tempo - aiming for about 9-10 months per book.
Ian wrote: "I agree the series should not be the same person doing the same sort of things. The worst problem I had was with what could be regarded as a five book series. The first one I wrote was intended as ..."I did something similar with the follow up to one book where I set it during an event in the "past" mentioned in the first book. Whereas the first book was set in space facing imminent destruction by an alien force, the follow up was a prisoner of war tale set on Earth during an Earth war where I stripped out basically every sci-fi element I could think about, setting it largely in a collection of plywood shacks, where even fire is an achievement. It was about as opposite as I could get from the first book.
As much as I'm not a fan of series, it is important to remember a lot of classic authors put out their "novels" as serials. If Charles Dickens wasn't writing his chapters as they were published, Jude the Obscure would have been a different book. That's an example of a book where the focus shifted drastically early on because he didn't release it all at once.The thing is, serials aren't a bad thing, but they should be marketed as serials instead of "series." I've seen this on Smashwords and I guess it works for authors. As for the money grab, it all depends on the price point. If an author puts out 10-20k words per part for $.99, is that much of a grab as those who put out complete short stories of under 5k words and charge $2.99 and up?
What exactly is the difference between serial and series?
I find it's easier to step out of books and explain it in terms of television actually.General Hospital and The Days of Our Lives (and every other soap ever) are serials. They never end, every episode is a cliffhanger, whenever anything wraps up there are five other plotlines still going on to carry on with. You could miss a bunch, and pick it up several episodes later, and you'll probably figure out what you missed, but you couldn't watch it entirely out of order, it'd make no sense.
Something like CSI is a series. There's some background ongoing arcs but cliffhangers are limited to the occasional two part episode, there is character development over time, but each episode is essentially standalone. It works better if you watch it in order, but it still works just fine if you don't.
I've just finished a wonderful trilogy by Goodreads author Rebecca Bryn For Their Country's good. Rebecca manages to keep the same suspense throughout all three books - each are complete in themselves but I defy you to read the first one and not finish the series!https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
Krazykiwi wrote: "I find it's easier to step out of books and explain it in terms of television actually.General Hospital and The Days of Our Lives (and every other soap ever) are serials. They never end, every ep..."
Okay, that makes sense! Thank you!
Krazykiwi wrote: "I find it's easier to step out of books and explain it in terms of television actually.General Hospital and The Days of Our Lives (and every other soap ever) are serials. They never end, every ep..."
I have been watching GH since I was in college in the early Luke and Laura days,where everyone stopped and skipped classes to catch the latest episode. But, I knew what it was and that it would never end. I also know that events move so slowly that I can skip it for months. Before VCR and even new tech, I missed it every day while I worked, and still went back to watching it when I was home on vacation and when I bought my first VCR in the mid-80s.
My problem. I can skip things with TV. I can give up on a series or a soap type show. I don't have to watch what everyone is talking about. I really have difficulty doing so with books, so I really resent it when a book is a cliffhanger. If it's not apparent before I download it to read, there is a good chance I will avoid that author in the future.
Given a dislike of cliff-hangers, which I share, the question then is, what sort of enticement to continue with the next book should end the current one? My view has been that the next book should be about something that is different from the current one, and there can be a clue as to what that is, but otherwise try and leave the current one with a feeling of, "that part is finished". Any comments?
For me, each book in a series should cover one or more periods of the lives of the main characters, with the next book jumping to another period/episode of their lives. That way, it minimizes the cliff hangers and makes the story progress in a logical, sequential way. Example: in my seven-book series, one of the two main heroines starts up as an inexperienced but willy teenage girl. By book seven, she is a four star general in the U.S. Airforce and is leading the American space program.
Michel wrote: "For me, each book in a series should cover one or more periods of the lives of the main characters, with the next book jumping to another period/episode of their lives. That way, it minimizes the c..."That sounds sensible. In my five book series, the first involves effectively training of a young Roman officer and the setting of the series problem, in the middle he saves an alien civilisation, and at the end, he is more a symbol, the main action being transferred to others, but he does complete the initial quest.
Given Krazykiwi's definitions above, my work is more of a serial than a series.Literally, it's about 18 months of story time cut up into slices with dramatic endings where each new slice starts almost immediately after the previous slice and all slices should - absolutely - be read in the correct order and without missing any.
I consider the endings to be a step back from cliffhangers, and are more properly described as 'turning points,' which are completed in the book in which they occur.
Some of the slices are really short on story time. E.g. book #3 covers a 40 hour period from start to finish. Book #5 is similar with nearly all the action occuring in a day.
I think it really depends on the story. Time frames might work with some stories, but not with others. I think there are story arcs that can conclude in short time frames, but then move on almost immediately.
I do understand what you mean by serial/series, but different stories do do different things.
Bearing in mind through all the following, there are readers who like cliffhangers, and pretty much feel the reverse of this.I've been thinking about the cliffhanger vs "one step back from..." that Graeme mentions. I think for me the line is immediacy. If the character is in immediate peril or subject to a sudden change of circumstance, right this minute at the end of the book, it's a cliffhanger.
If he immediate peril is over, the character is taking a breather but he's still wading through a pile of crap, it's not so much.
Also if the situation that puts the character in immediate peril is just tacked on in the last chapter - cheap shot, authors, I will not read your next book.
I'm gonna ramble now about a specific book that did this to me, it's in the spoiler if you want to just blast past it.
(view spoiler)
Wow - that's an appaling way to end a book - however it's apparently successful....
I've been trying to balance this in my works in progress, a series that is currently unpublished because I'm trying to get the storylines right so I don't end up writing myself into a corner (and because I know readers will want to not have to wait forever to find out what happens next). And I think Krazykiw nailed it when saying that it's all about immediacy. Personally, I can handle cliffhangers, but if the character is in peril, in that moment, I won't want to wait long to find out what happens next. It's one of the things that makes reading or rereading through The Lord of the Rings so hard. No sooner does a character (like Frodo) get himself into a jam then we spend the next half of the next book with the other characters. Similarly, in the climax in The Return of the King, we get brought to the very eve of battle and excitement and tension only to move to the other characters. If those books ended in such predicaments, and I had to wait, I'd be furious.
That being said, I have read books that were part of a series that frustrated me so much I didn't read the next one. Most recently, Passenger by Alexandra Bracken. That story's ending (without spoiling it too much) practically undid everything that had happened in the story. I was left feeling like I'd wasted my time, as it all might as well have been a prequel to the real events that theoretically happen in the next book. Nothing was resolved, nothing was finalized. What we had thought was settled was unsettled, and readers had to wait a year, but even if I hadn't had to wait, I wouldn't have touched it, because that ending took away any confidence I had in the author to tell me a story that didn't feel like a waste of time and emotions.
However, I know many readers loved the story, as it has 3.8/5 here on Goodreads and higher overall ratings elsewhere, so I think the big issue is knowing your audience and having the next installment ready in a year or less. Clearly, there are readers who will read and enjoy your story even if it ends poorly, if they're committed to the characters and like your writing style.
Could be, but most YA that I've read have at least some resolution, some sense that the time spent in reading accomplished something. They are fond of series, though, especially in the YA fantasy genre, so perhaps the readers are so used to various versions of uncompleted stories that enormous cliffhangers don't bother them as much.
Ian wrote: "Given a dislike of cliff-hangers, which I share, the question then is, what sort of enticement to continue with the next book should end the current one? My view has been that the next book should ..."If you write a book people love, you shouldn't need a gimmick to rope them into the sequel. They should follow because they genuinely want another story in the same universe. There have been a couple series I've been roped into this summer, and I found I had to read one author's preview for a sequel because I found they were the rare instances where I wanted more.
Got through most of the Tom Corbitt Space Cadet series for boys form the 50s where each book was a self-contained story where at most there are reminders of the past adventures that didn't need to be there...There are no cliffhangers and no dangling plot elements carrying into the next book.
A more recent example is a book call the Bright Black Sea by an author called Litka. He did what I did with Dione's War, and that was to release it as one massive epic in three parts instead of three individual books...each piece reads like an individual entry, so the criticisms of series don't apply. While the length caused me to groan, it was not so much the unifying thread through the three parts that hooked me, but his universe building that kept me wanting more...so much so, I picked up the first part of his planned sequel just to see where he was going with the characters and the their universe.
On the category of Young adult, The Hardy Boys, and I imagine Nancy Drew were the same way as my first example...when the story ended it was over, but you kept reading to find out what the next adventure was going to be and not because of an unfinished thread.
Ian wrote: "Given a dislike of cliff-hangers, which I share, the question then is, what sort of enticement to continue with the next book should end the current one? My view has been that the next book should ..."I suspect genre could have some effect in this. Sci fi, it is often the same main characters but a different planet or battle. Mysteries and legal thrillers, it is a new case. Some suspense thrillers lately it has been a new city. Maybe it is like real estate - location, location. :-)
Like J.J. wrote, for me it is either the "world" or the characters that make me want the next book. Why do I own every original series Star Trek and Voyager book - because I enjoy the Star Trek universe and want to read about those characters. I prefer series over stand alone because I want to know what is happening to characters and how their lives progress. I own in hardcover many sci-fi series. I am sad when the author abandons them or worse, dies.
But, the caveat is I want another book by choice Not by force because the author left the character hanging by a thread over a chasm. (I won't read preview chapters at the end of a book for the next book either.)
World, Writing, Wealth
Books mentioned in this topic
Passenger (other topics)Captal's Tower (other topics)
(a) Should all the books have a similar length?
(b) Each book has to start. The first one is easy, but thereafter there will be material that came in earlier books that is relevant. How much back story do you bleed in for those who have accidentally picked up book 2 or 3 first?
(c) Each book has to have an ending. The last book should be easy, but what about earlier ones? Cliff-hangers? Finish something but indicate there is more? Should each book solve or address a separate issue?
Thoughts?