How (Not) to Write a Series

So, I’m going to be talking a bit about things that ruin (or at least bring down) book series . . . when I loved the first book.  These aren’t absolute rules; but I do think they’re things to consider when writing.  Thinking about them has certainly prevented me from doing some things I really dislike in other authors.  All of the examples I use below are from real books by good writers.

So, without further ado:

1)      Changing protagonists between books.  I’ve read a couple of trilogies in which each book in the trilogy is written from a different character’s point of view.  In each case, the trilogy gets further and further from the original protagonist, so that that character is barely a footnote in book 3.  Why do I hate this?  Because I get very attached to my protagonists.  I want to read more about them, not about some character I barely know or have never met.

Doing this right: in his Bartimaeus trilogy, Jonathan Stroud adds a protagonist (who does sometimes hold the narrative) for books 2 and 3.  But he doesn’t get rid of his other protagonists.

In the Animorphs series, K.A. Applegate rotates the narrative between six protagonists.

2)      Excessive time lapses between books.  In effect, having excessive gaps between books can be the same thing.  If it’s been 10 years since we last saw our protagonist, who was then about 18, then the protagonist and surrounding characters are, in essence, different characters.  I don’t want to know what happens to the hero in 10 years—I want to know what happens next.

Doing this right: the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher sometimes has a jump between books, but he doesn’t do it in a way that I feel I’ve missed anything.  He fills the reader in.  Basically, the jumps between books are of all the unimportant filler bits—just like the jumps inside books.

3)      Nothing ever changes.  This is in some ways the opposite problem to #2.  Instead of too much changing, nothing ever changes.  Maybe things will sometimes look like they’re going to change, but it’s one step forward, one step back.  Soap operas do this a lot, and I find it very frustrating.  I want things to progress at a reasonable rate!  Otherwise, what’s even the point of having more than one book?

Doing this right: in the Nero Wolfe series, no one ever ages and neither of our protagonists gets married or moves away; they stay the same.  But the story isn’t about them: it’s about the mystery.  And the mystery is different in each book.  Personally, I wish Sherlock Holmes had been written like this . . . indeed, most of the TV show adaptations use this method.

4)      Changing genres between books.  There is a series of books I absolutely love.  They’re action-packed space opera . . . except that book 9 is instead a romance.  Not even a very well-written romance.  This isn’t an insult to romance novels, but if I want to read a romance series, I’ll read a romance series.  You promised me awesome space action, darn it, so what’s this nonsense?

Doing this right: in the Alien franchise, Alien is a horror survival film but Aliens is more of a military sci-fi thriller, Alien 3 is tonally fatalistic, Prometheus is more of a philosophical, exploratory film with horror elements, and Alien: Covenant is a combination.  Every film in the franchise feels like a different genre . . . yet somehow (with the exception of Alien: Resurrection, which felt to me like bad fanfiction), they work together.

5)      Not staying true to your premise: internal consistency.  This is related to #4, but is more internal to books.  It deals with proper and consistent characterization within your world and with consistent world-building.  This one seems to come out particularly in relation to sex.  Many authors, regardless of their settings and characters, write their characters with their, the author’s, sexual mores . . . when it makes zero sense.  If your hero is a very proper, religious, Victorian gentleman faithfully devoted to his fiancée, he should not out of the blue meet a rather rough woman and immediately decide to have sex with her.  Similarly, if your character is in a celibate profession in a world that Takes That Seriously, he should not just decide to get married because you, the author, want some romance.  Write a different character, if that’s what you want.

Doing this right: Harry Potter is a good example.  Rowling expands the universe with each book and lets the protagonists develop naturally.

6)      Not staying true to your characters: I’ve also seen this take the form of either creating caricatures of/writing fanfiction* about your own characters.  I read the sequel to one book, and found all the characters had turned into bizarre, exaggerated versions of themselves.  Then there’s a rather famous book that develops an awesome and intense villain.  Then in book 2, this villain is suddenly the hero with a backstory that’s basically a watered-down version of the hero’s story in book 1.  It’s an absolute waste.  Based on the way it’s written, my theory is that the author fell in love with his/her own character and so decided to retroactively make him “awesome.”  What this actually does is make him weak and pathetic.  This doesn’t mean your characters can’t learn and grow—they should.  But it should be natural growth.

*I love fanfiction, but there’s a time and a place for it.  And it’s for your fans, not you.  You shouldn’t be writing it about your own book.

Doing this right: It’s hard for a character to undergo a major shift while staying the same person, but it can be done.  The trick is to push the character past the breaking point so that a major transition between books/movies makes sense.  Darth Vader managed this between III and IV.  I’m having a hard time thinking of a book example, but I’d love to read one if anyone has a suggestion.

7)      Letting your protagonist get boring: It’s hard to know what to do with a really long series.  Some authors solve this by never letting their characters age—something that works well for detective stories.  But many series want their protagonists to continue to age, and that’s fine.  Just don’t let them get boring!  I don’t mean that your character can’t meet a romantic interest and get married and have kids.  But if your hero has previously been zipping around the galaxy performing heists, then don’t make him stay at home dealing with bureaucratic issues while waiting for the birth of his children.  Give him a spouse who will help him be more exciting, not drag him down.

Doing this right: the Star Wars Expanded Universe (or Legends).  These novels vary in quality, but Timothy Zahn starts us off very strong, and I’d also like to put in a good work for Matthew Stover’s Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor. I haven’t read all the post-VI EU books, but the ones I’ve read keep all our heroes in character and interesting/awesome while letting them marry and have children and progress with their lives.

8)      Undoing the ending.  This usually comes about when the original material wasn't written to have a sequel but was then so successful that the maker decided to add a sequel . . . and so retroactively reset the universe (this fits into #2).  Either that, or the sequel is written years later and the writer tries to be realistic by being pessimistic.  So: you know that romance you were rooting for that finally came to pass?  Yeah, it went down the chute after the last installment and you'll never see that person again.  Or that happy ending?  Nah, they died off screen/ between books.  How about everything we've been working for for the entire series?  Disappeared when you weren't watching.  I hate this.  I will sometimes refuse to watch or read a sequel if it does this.  If I care at all about the characters, this will absolutely ruin the entire series for me.

Doing this right: I'm not sure I can think of any example, because the story needs to move forward, not back.  I have seen fanfiction that fixes problems with the source material by creating sequels (like, why did Loki have such a stupid plan in the Avengers?  Well, because he was building towards something else/ his motivation wasn't what people assumed.  I've seen multiple fan sequels that do this very well indeed).  This is, in fact one area in which fanfiction excels: recognizing and fixing problems.

TL;DR: Stay true to the premise and characters you’ve set up in book one, and progress that story at a moderate rate without undoing your ending or progress.