Finishing a Series
26 Jan 2012 1 Comment
in Reading Tags: fantasy, fiction, Harry Potter, novel, reading, The Boxcar Children, The Wheel of Time, writing
I just finished reading the Harry Potter series. It was an interesting experience, because I hadn’t read them all back-to-back before. It was also fun because I knew what was going to happen, and as an author it was intriguing to watch Rowling set things up from the beginning.
Series are interesting animals. For authors who write the long, epic fantasy series, they must know where they’re going before they start. Robert Jordan died before he finished The Wheel of Time, but he made sure that someone knew how it was supposed to end.
This is different from an episodic series, like The Boxcar Children. (I loved the original series as a child.) You could read book four, and while you wouldn’t know all of the back story, you’d still be able to follow the plot of the book you were reading. These series show up in lots of different genres, while the 12-book, linked saga is more common in fantasy and science fiction.
So far my stories are one-book, or at the very least trilogy, ideas.; perhaps some day I’ll come up with a concept for a giant series, but for now I’m happy to write my stand alone novels.
