
Writerly Post Today: Stand Alone vs. Series
I have been a fan of Janet Evanovich since the first Stephanie Plum book, One for the Money, debuted. She's one of the authors I get giddy for when I hear a new book is coming. (My protag shares some similarities with Stephanie Plum in terms of voice, language and general fuckyuppishness.) I bought Plum Lucky yesterday.
I read something interesting on Holly Kennedy's Blog. She's a successful writer. Check her out. She said the characters from her latest book The Silver Compass (which I ordered today) are fading from her mind as she writes her next book. Which got me to thinking of authors who write series, like Janet Evanovich, and the readers who have expectations from a writer and her books.
If I could ask Janet Evanovich a question it would be, "How do you balance the need to please your readers with your desire to write something new and perhaps write different characters?" And then I would ask her 4,534 more questions while crying "I'm not worthy!" until she called security to peel me off her windshield where I would have crawled as I saw her driving down the main drag in Hanover where she lives. (Note, I spent 4 years up there in Dartmouth country, however I have never and will never stalk Ms. E. But I love being able to picture in my minds' eye her walking past Baker Tower or into The Hop.)
Am I rambling? Of course. Let me slurp down some coffee. There. So, Holly is able to walk away from her characters and move on to her next wonderful book - many authors write series where they keep their characters alive for years, decades even.
As a writer would you prefer to write a set a characters and then move on? Or keep them alive in additional books? I'm leaning toward keeping them alive. Of course, they have to be born on the pages first, don't they? I mean the kind of pages between an actual spine with a publisher's name on the side - not the kind I get from Staples.
I hope to sell this winter/spring. Maybe I 'll get "Plum Lucky?"