Fic Talk > General Discussion
Question of the day part 9 (even though days go by lol)
mare:
--- Quote from: emilo on July 12, 2013, 09:01:38 PM ---This is true! Now to attempt to branch out and write about something I don't know so much about!
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Hey if I can do romance and Julie can do slash, surely you can do whatever it is you're about to do! LOL Go for it!
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: mare on July 12, 2013, 08:05:38 PM ---How do you feel about sequels and series in general? Do you write them and or read them? Do you know ahead of time that you will be writing a bunch of stories or do you make that decision later on?
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As a reader, I tend to like sequels/series better with published fiction than fanfic, but it all depends on the story and how much thought the author put into the decision to turn it into a series. J.K. Rowling, for example, always knew that the Harry Potter series was going to be seven novels long, and although each one tells its own story, they go together to tell a bigger story. You can see evidence of her thorough planning in the way that it's structured.
When I decide whether or not to read a sequel of a story I liked, there are two questions I ask myself:
1. Do I care about these characters enough to want to read more of their story?
2. Is there really more story to tell?
If I'm left hanging after the first story and do care about the characters, I'll almost always read the sequel. If the first story stands alone and wraps up nicely, I really need to be able to answer "yes" to both of those questions. I think one of the mistakes authors make with sequels is writing them for no reason other than that they want to or because they can't let go of their characters. But sometimes there just isn't another story to tell that's going to be interesting without going over the top. There have been several sequels to stories I love that I haven't bothered to read or started to read and stopped because of just that.
As a writer, I wrote way more sequels in my first two years of writing fanfic than I have in the last decade. Some of those series really could have just been combined into one story, and some of them have sequels that were completely unnecessary and over the top. I learned that just because I have an idea for a sequel doesn't mean I should use it!
My only notable sequel in the last ten years has been By My Side, which is the sequel to Broken. When I was writing Broken, I did not intend to write a sequel to it, and so it wraps up with a nice, neat ending and can stand alone as a story about Nick being knocked down by an illness and finding a way to get back on his feet (or foot LOL). That said, I saw the potential to further explore the romantic relationship he forms, which was really just a subplot in Broken, so I decided to write a sequel that continued his and Claire's story with their relationship as the main storyline and the aftermath of going through cancer as more of a subplot. Was it necessary? No, but I do think there was definitely more story to tell there, so in my mind, it was worth writing, and I think the readers who cared about those two characters and their relationship in the first story found it worth reading.
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: mare on July 12, 2013, 09:16:54 PM ---Hey if I can do romance and Julie can do slash, surely you can do whatever it is you're about to do! LOL Go for it!
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LOL Too true! I love that this thread is getting us to branch out and write outside of our comfort zones.
RokofAges75:
Ooh, another good published example for the whole series question is the Kissed by an Angel series by Elizabeth Chandler, which, sort of like Star Wars, started out as a trilogy of three novels back in the 90s and is now six novels long because she wrote another trilogy just over the last few years.
The original three novels told one story and went together so well that I don't think you can even buy them as separate novels anymore. When I bought them back in 1998, it was one thick book with all three stories inside, so I tend to think of it as just one, three-part novel. But all three parts are definitely necessary to tell the whole story.
The original trilogy wraps up nicely, so I was surprised when I found out she had written another sequel 10+ years later. I bought it right away, though, because I had loved the original series so much. I read it, and while I enjoyed it, it wasn't nearly as good as the original and definitely had the feel of being stretched... like she was really "reaching" by writing it. Then she released two more books to complete the new trilogy, which I also bought and read. They did go together to tell a new and different story that still related to the one told in the original trilogy, but it wasn't as good, and the ending of the last book pissed me off so much that I'd like to pretend they don't exist. Much like how some of the hardcore Star Wars fans feel about the prequel trilogy, I guess. (I don't mind the prequel trilogy, but the original is better.)
I dunno, it's just another example to show that while series can be a great idea, they can also go wrong if they're stretched past their limit.
mare:
Get back on his foot! lmao I love you!
You pretty much answered my question exactly how I would have, Julie. I feel the same about sequels and series and tend to ask myself those very same questions before I read the next story. I believe I have only ever read one full series and that was the Swollen Issues one because I needed to find out what happened to Nick in the end. I do feel like most of the time, sequels exist mainly because it is hard to give up characters after investing so much time into them, but unless those characters grip me to the point that I NEED to know what happens next, I tend to bid them farewell at the end of the first story.
I do enjoy series when it comes to books but aside from the Harry Potter books which I felt like got better and better with each one, most of the others to me tend to go the other way. Hunger Games is an example of that. By the third book I kept saying "Oh she wrote this one because she was commissioned for three books!" LOL and those Flowers in the Attic books and the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. I've never read the Angel Series, but it sounds like the same idea.
I usually never watch a sequel to a movie for that same reason.
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