How do you like your books?
I like a good clean ending. For me that final wrap up is what transforms a good story into an excellent story. What really makes me feel disgruntled is the sort of story that ends in a cliff hanger. That’s only a set up for the next story, and it makes me feel manipulated. Sometimes I just walk away. Or how about when you’re looking for the next good book to spend your time on, think you’ve found one that might be interesting, and then discover that it’s actually book 53 from the middle of a series? Or something like that. And then the library—if you get most of your reading material from the library, as I do—doesn’t have the whole series?
I like a book that I can pick up, enjoy, and then have a good closure at the end of it. Story finished. Actually, I like that even if the book does happen to be part of a series. Maybe there will be some threads still trailing in an alluring sort of way, that make me want to see what happens next, but at least that part of the story has reached a graceful conclusion. But what’s really nice, and doesn’t seem to be as common these days, is the book that can stand alone. For me there’s something really satisfying about a story that manages to be fully contained within the covers of a single book.
Not to say that there aren’t some stories that need more than a single book. There certainly are some really good series out there. Also, as a writer, I can definitely understand the temptation of writing a series. Once you have an audience hooked, it’s a great set up for selling several more books. Publishers really like series too, for the aforesaid reason. As a matter of fact, I think this preference on the part of the publishers has manipulated the market quite a lot.
It seems a shame that a writer should feel like they have to write a series so that they can break into publishing, when maybe they only have a one book story, and maybe they don’t like writing about the same thing over and over again. I guess I’d like to see less pressure to make everything into a series. It would be nice if the market could open up more for one-book stories; for those writers who like to write them, and for those readers who like to read them.