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- Rank: Eccentric Mentor
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Hey, KeePers!
Today I have a simple question for you: How to know if your book should be a standalone or a series? How do you decide?
I’d love to hear all your thoughts, especially from those of you who have written a series before!
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for me, I had more than one unanswered question that needed to be answered at the end of the story, I was happy with my suspenseful ending, and I wanted to make a series, because I have a whole world dreamed out and I have to write it down
I think if you can put it comfortably in one book, do it, if you can’t, then maybe write a sequel.
My story started out as two books, and then I made a series; the two short novels turned into a Lord of the Rings-length series of heroes and villains, wars and peace, heartbreak and love. I wanted to make a series that covered years so readers could watch the characters grow, meet new ones decide whether they hate them or love them, mourn old ones and know them and the world for more than a short time. You can do that in a single book, I think, but it depends on the length of the book, and what your plot is. If it covers years, maybe try writing a sequel. If you add another perspective, it may be a perfect opportunity to make a series!
idk if that’s helpful, I’m tired so my brain is foggy haha
I'm 'a homeschooler' because cookie-making writing artistic animal-whisperer isn't a job title
Basically what @elfwing said. If there’s more story to be told than can reasonably be done in one book, it ought to be a series. I had one planned standalone that ended up turning into a duology because a whole additional plot showed up, as a background thing in the first book but begging to be the focal point of a sequel
I’ve had other series that started out as series because I wanted to show progressive generations of characters or I just knew there was too much story for one book or I wanted to show a story from multiple angles.
My standalone is such because the plot is sufficiently self-contained and resolved by the end, so while I have connected short stories planned there’s not enough more for a whole sequel (or prequel) novel.
Speculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Singer. Worldbuilding enthusiast.
@joy-caroline Ooh good question! I am someone who always makes the mistake of turning books into series when they should probably just be standalones. I think one of the ways to tell is to take a look at the scope of the story: if it is big and covers a long period of time with a lot of important events taking place in that passage of time, it might need to be a series. And if the scope is smaller, with fewer events needing to take place to drive the story to its conclusion, then it’s probably best left as a standalone.
The Lord of the Rings had a lot of events that needed to happen to bring it to its conclusion, and it also needed various POVs (Frodo & Sam, Merry & Pippin, Aragorn, etc.) to show important events happening. The sheer amount of content required to effectively tell this story shows that it needed to be a series. A story like Pride & Prejudice, however, doesn’t have a really external “save the world” scope and is more internal, about saving relationships and changing as a person because of those relationships. It also comes to its natural conclusion sooner than LOTR because it doesn’t need as many POVs and big, world-changing events to happen to push it to its conclusion.
So hopefully I can learn from this and actually keep it in mind the next time I’m tempted to write a series lol
@joy-caroline
Me: I want to write a five part series. Let me come up with enough plot to fill it.
Also me: This plot idea feels like it’s gonna be a three part series.
That’s basically it haha. Depends on how much plot idea you have.
Lately, it's been on my brain
Would you mind letting me know
If hours don't turn into days@joy-caroline Hmm, interesting question! Like everyone else said, I think it depends on the story. I mostly write fanfics, but I have done some extensive worldbuilding even with those, and sometimes, a duology, trilogy, or longer series is what tells the story best. And sometimes I have stories which are connected, but aren’t necessarily a series–my Warrior Cats fanfics Hunterclaw’s Trial and Crossfire’s Betrayal aren’t supposed to be a series, but they’re both about the same family of characters.
Where'd I get ya this time? The liver? The kidney? I'm runnin' outta places to put holes in ya.
@joy-caroline
Good question! In a way, it might depend on where you are in your story. If you’re just beginning it, it would be hard to tell if it was something you could stretch into a series or not (especially since things can change as you go along).
I’d say that, usually, a series only needs to keep at least some of three things from the previous book: the characters, story, or world. The more they have in common, the tighter-knit the series will be. For example, The Chronicles of Narnia are fixed in Narnia, but the characters and story vary throughout it. Whereas The Wingfeather Saga or Green Ember Series is essentially pursuing the same characters, story, and world (even though each book may have a different focus). I’d say that if you feel your passion/interest for one of those three things is strong enough to fan the flame for a sequel/series, then totally go for it.
Happy writing!
~In Christ Alone My Hope Is Found~
@joy-caroline
Basically what @elfwing said: do what you can comfortably do. If everything fits in a book, great! If it doesn’t, you can add another one, but be careful. Many sequels simply continue the plotline, but all books need to have a beginning, a middle, a climax, and a conclusion. There has to be a sense of satisfaction at the end of one story, not just a sense of, “Why on earth did the story end here?!?” (Note: this is all personal opinion. I’m sure a lot of people enjoy reading series’ that leave you totally hanging at the end of it without a sense of completion, but I’m not one of them.) But on the other hand, some people (Brandon Sanderson comes to mind) write absolutely enormous books that could be separated into about five smaller ones. If you’re talking about your biblical/historical fiction, I wouldn’t advise it; it usually works best with fantasy, but it’s probably still an option for everyone.
Sorry, you probably couldn’t get a ton out of that… it really was a jumbled mess. But yeah… pretty much what Elfwing said.
@joy-caroline I guess it would be if you feel like more needs to be told about the character or the world. Or maybe if the overall story plot needs more room than one book.
I’ll give some examples. For my spy novel, The Black Cat, I feel like one book is not enough to explore my MC. It needs more than one novel to show Delano growing as a character and his advancement in his spy career
(and leading up to his death . . . just kidding XD). Now on the other hand, sometimes I have a story that feels like it only needs one book; like one book is enough to tell all that needs to be told about a character.For the overall story plot, I’ll use @issawriter7 Issabelle’s Heir to His Crown (or Heir Saga) as an example. Her Heir Saga has a plot about Keenum reclaiming the crown that stretches three books. Issabelle was just telling me last night that after the third book, she’s not going to continue Keenum’s story because there is nothing else to tell after he reclaims the crown. So this series required more than one book to fully tell the plotline of the story.
I hope this was helpful. 🙂
"It looks like a fairy world"~Meg from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Fall in love with Jesus- Rank: Eccentric Mentor
- Total Posts: 1379
@elfwing Thank you! I can see it would be best to have a series if your story spans a particularly long period of time.
@r-m-archer Cool! Sometimes new plots or characters pop up that are just begging to be given their own book.
@jodi-maile Long periods of time in a story are definitely things to consider. I’m seeing that a lot in the replies, so it’s interesting to see that all y’all agree!
@devastate-lasting Haha! Makes sense.
@keilah-h Awesome! I like series in which all the books are connected by a thread.
@madelyn Good, solid tips! That’s handy to know!
@faith-q Thank you, Faith! I’d have to respectfully disagree on Biblical and historical fiction series, though. I think those genres work wonderfully for series. *thinking of the Two from Galilee trilogy specifically* Thank you again for your input!
@mkfairygirl I can see how stories like your spy novel and Issabelle’s Heir Saga would need more books. Thanks for the examples!@joy-caroline,
Oh, I’m sorry for the misunderstanding! I should have been more clear about that. I totally agree with you; some of the best historical/biblical fiction I’ve read has been in a series (The Viking Quest series by Lois Walfrid Johnson comes to mind). What I meant to say was that I don’t know if it would be the best idea to put what could be the content of a series into one big book. I think that really big books are best with fantasy, but most contemporary historical/biblical/cultural fiction is no more than 100,000 words long, whereas fantasy can be much longer. (There are a few examples of longer historical/biblical fiction, such as Les Miserables, but those are all older books.) Sorry for the confusion!
@joy-caroline You’re welcome!! Glad I could help! 🙂
"It looks like a fairy world"~Meg from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Fall in love with Jesus@joy-caroline
I simply have a hard time stopping my writing flow.
My WIP at the moment is a four-part book series, but was intended to be just one book. My issue was I couldn’t let go of my beloved babies after spending such a long time on them XD (Also the first book has a very sad dramatic ending and I couldn’t mentally live with myself without fixing the tones it set.)
But it is DEFINATLY better as a series now. I’m glad I didn’t stop 🙂
I have written a couple standalones, and I think I knew they shouldn’t(for the better of the book) be a series mostly because of their endings. They satisfied me.
@joy-caroline Personally, if I think the first characters/plot could interact in any way during the next book (Supposing the second book has different characters) then I’ll try and weave a good way to bring back my last charries and create some kind of a bond or friendship there, thus making it a series. However, if it all occurs in the same world, but the previous charries are long since dead or just never mentioned. I’ll call it a standalone! This is just my perspective but I hope it helps!!
"It's easy to be caught up in stardust and whispers when reality is so dark and loud."
@joy-caroline
I am pretty much going to echo what a lot of the other gals said! Honestly, I simply decide based on if I have more stories to tell. For my romances, there is only going to be one book. I don’t have enough material to stretch it out any longer. My fantasy world is the opposite. Right now, I’m at five novel ideas (one in the process of being written), and who knows if that’ll be the end to it! I suppose the length of the finished product could also influence my decision. If I ended up with an 800-page novel, I might break it up into two or three. 800-pages is a lot for anyone to read. 😛
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