Stringing Along

THIS WEEK:Do you enjoy reading SERIES fiction? Is there a “magic” number of titles in that series that you find most agreeable? Moreover, do you WRITE series fiction? How many titles do YOU plan in your series?

I most definitely read series! I did many series with my children, like The Little House series, and with my grandson, Harry Potter, Septimus Heap, Percy Jackson, and others. My niece put me onto many series, such as Betsy the Vampire Queen, Stephanie Plum, Ghost Girl and The Puzzle Lady. On my own I found the Italian Kitchen Mysteries, Davis Way Mysteries and, UNCOUNTABLE numbers of mystery series, by many of my former guests, (some of the titles above included).

There is no ‘magic’ number. The Chronicles of Egg  books were technically a trilogy, one which my grandson and I were sad to see ended, (and we hope that Geoff Rodkey will one day pick up the character’s story when they are grown.) The Ghost Girl books were also a trilogy. I believe could have gone on longer, but perhaps Tonya Hurley knew that she would run out of steam and decided to quit while she was ahead.

I wish others had been so astute.

I loved and laughed with the Stephanie Plum series through many books, but enough was enough some time back. Janet Evanovich and her publishers should have known when to have Stephanie marry Joe Morelli and quit hankering after “Ranger”, (as attractive as Evanovich makes him, even to the reader.)Ghost

A writer should not give into temptation continue a series just because the name still sells.

As fond as I am of The Betsy books and their author, I was not happy with M.J. Davidson’s change of tone and convoluted storylines/characters after her biggest successes with the franchise.
She had other irons in the fire, and should have retired Betsy while the series was still fun.

One series that has not fallen flat, even after the main character’s problems, (which were the mainstay of the jokes), have ceased to exist, is the Puzzle Lady books. I waited a long time for the last one, but it was worth the wait.
I hope there will be more, but that is up to Parnell Hall, who knows his characters better than I do.

Have I written a series? No. Have I considered it? Yes, or at least a sequel to my one romance novel, because I would like to revisit the Caribbean islands that I created and to see the people there, and my characters who visited. I had characters who were uncooperative in the first one and I punished them by making them ‘extras’. I took away their thread, which I had wanted to add, and if I did a sequel, I could try to coerce them into a storyline. But I don’t think that will happen. I think that I should leave well enough alone and hope that all was well in the islands with those my protagonist and her husband left behind, and hope that the couple, somewhere, in some universe,  got to go back,

 and found all as well as I left in possibilities and promises.

Advertisement