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@joy-caroline
I really just second what everyone else is saying!! For me, it depends a lot on what genre it is and how the story ends. So for a fantasy novel, I’m gonna really highly consider a series since it’s common for the genre, but for my contemporary romance novel I’m writing, I’ve been going back and forth over if I want to do one or not. That’s a genre whose sequels and such typically have other characters leading than the MCs from the first book (though not always), so it’s extra things to consider. Overall, it just depends on how book one ends and if it’s open for a sequel or not. Often, I try *really* hard to keep my first books as a standalone with spin-off potential because as a new author, a publisher/agent will not always want to take on a novel with a cliffhanger or a full book series to follow.
*cough* but Keenum just messed all of this up for me in his novel XD I tried…But all in all, I just adore series so I’m more likely to do that unless I feel the story is calling for it otherwise instead of the other way around. 😉 Hope that helps!!!!
God gives His hardest battles to His strongest soldiers.
TeenWritersNook.com@joy-caroline
Like everyone is saying, your intuition tells you whether or not a book needs to be a standalone or a series. I definitely work that way too, but I’m also learning to be cautious when considering making a book that was originally a standalone have a sequel or a series. Also even books you planned as a series need to have caution too, especially when considering how many books you need in the series. I say this because so many times I’ve seen and heard book series that really shouldn’t have had that sequel or had way too many books in that one series and the author should have stopped ages ago or even just at their recent one before they failed with their latest book in the series. I’m starting to realise that care needs to be taken in this area. Though in a lot of cases, a lot of authors know when to stop so it isn’t that common but it’s important to keep in mind so you will only write the strongest novels for your audience and avoid a pitfall that a bunch of authors have fallen into.
This consideration is personally really important to me as I am the sort of author who makes any world big as time goes on. I technically don’t have an end for my stories as they go beyond what I originally planned, but I also know when to stop because I have certain things I like to keep in mind when creating my stories.
(1) The age of the characters and the target audience. As an example, if you were writing for YA, you can’t really have your main characters aged beyond 18. If your story causes your characters to grow older, you need to stop while they at the right age, just before they’re not or reconsider your target audience. Age is important because your characters can’t be the same age forever if your story expands over a year or years.
(2) Does the protagonist(s) need another arc. I think this sometimes gets overlooked, but it’s genuinely one of the things I consider the most in this area. I recently like to think of book series as stages, each one a different type of character growth (but are all tightly connected to each other). If the protagonist has one lesson they need to learn, it’s likely to be a standalone. If they have several, spreading them out in a series is a good idea (just make sure to connect them all to one big final overarching arc). As an example, my current WIP is a four book series. The first book is basically a negative arc but it’s important for my character to be broken in book 1 so he can grow positively in book 2. The positive arc starts in book 2 but continues in book 3 and 4, but in different ways. My protagonist doesn’t learn all he needs to learn in just one book. Since he starts in such an unhealthy place, it takes him awhile to overcome his many lies, fears and scars he’s gotten in his past as a child and young teenager. As the plot shifts into a new face in each different book, each time does it trigger another misbelief he needs to defeat in order to win the battle he’s fighting. But at the end of book 4, he grows enough (not completely) that he is in a healthy place now and the story can end there because I know the audience doesn’t need to know the rest of his journey as he has overcame his biggest hardships in those four books.
(3) How realistically the protagonist(s) needs to deal with something. As examples, characters dealing with grief probably don’t need a sequel or a series unless they grow out of their grief or changed how they grieve. (As we all know, grief isn’t easily overcame in a few months or years but also at the same time there isn’t a lot you can write about grief until it’s the same thing over and over again. At least that’s my experience of it in real life and in fiction.) On the other hand, characters in a war or rebellion might need more time, at least a sequel, to properly show those things. Though it heavily depends on the genre, when the war or rebellion starts in the book, and how long it really needs to be for the story. For these sort of things you just need to think about how logically a situation needs to go on for.
(4) If the story is too long for a standalone (in the case of sequel(s) only). Sometimes the lesson and situation your protagonist is dealing with is just too long for a single book and can be better consumed over two books or more. Though you don’t want to milk the story either just for the sake of making a series because it’s seems reasonable to make it that way because it’s so long. Sometimes it just needs to be a long standalone.
(5) Does continuing the same story or the same world adds anything new or important for the audience to know. This one is a little tricky to figured out at a glance, it usually takes some time, some thinking, to know for sure in my experience. I think this is the one that authors can get stuck on. I definitely do! Though no. 2 does help a lot in deciding yes or no in the end.
Sorry this is so long! I seem to have a lot to say on this topic (despite the fact I have never finished series before, haha).
[quote quote=104939](1) The age of the characters and the target audience. As an example, if you were writing for YA, you can’t really have your main characters aged beyond 18. If your story causes your characters to grow older, you need to stop while they at the right age, just before they’re not or reconsider your target audience. Age is important because your characters can’t be the same age forever if your story expands over a year or years.[/quote]
I’m going to disagree with this point, actually. I think that 1) if your characters carry through a series that begins with them at a certain age, your readers will follow them through that and may even go through that growth with the characters. Take Harry Potter, for example. I’m not a fan of HP, personally, but plenty of kids “grew up with” it, not only in the sense that they read it as children but also in the sense that they aged alongside the main characters.
I also think we could use more YA with older characters to act as more mature role models for readers. Not that the YA section should be flooded with MCs in their 20s and older—that’s what NA and adult are for—but that there’s nothing wrong with following a character in a YA series who “ages out,” so to speak. It could be used as a positive.
Otherwise, however, I agree with everything you said. 🙂
Speculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Singer. Worldbuilding enthusiast.
Fair points. I’m probably too strict about the age for characters a little too much, and thinking on it, if you’re writing Christian fiction it’s way less of a problem than writing for the secular audience. There are of course will be always exceptions to this “rule” of mine, which I probably should have mentioned before.
Harry Potter, as you mentioned, is a good example. But personally I actually think Harry Potter growing up with its audience has issues for the future audience. It’s marketed as middle grade but technically it grows into being YA, being more mature and darker as it goes along and maybe is a little too much for a middle grade audience whether they know it or not. I haven’t read most of the books, so I don’t know personally how much it matures and gets darker. I know from second sources, which it isn’t good I’ll admit but I just haven’t been able to read the rest right now. I may still think it’s a problem or I wrongly judged how it actually is and is actually okay for children in the middle grade age to read even though the characters get way older than them.
I’m still learning but I just know that taking care with the character’s ages will avoid the wrong audience reading stuff that is too mature. Again, I think it’s way more a problem with both writing for a secular audience and traditional publishing. Indie has a lot more freedom with its age audience and the middle grade, YA, NA and Adult genres. I guess as I have been reading about the problem that YA is facing nowadays I guess kinda of freak out unnecessarily. The expectations for more mature content follows character’s ages closely, though again there will be a bunch of exceptions to this. I just know from personal experience recently that I have found a lot of my characters implicitly deal with things that should be NA rather than YA, which is mostly influenced by their age because they are mature enough to deal with these things than teenagers would and I would just personally like for YA to have less mature content than it currently does, even though I will never be explicit about my mature content of course. Personally I aim to have my YA to be a lot more cleaner (even implicitly) than it needs to be just because there’s a lot of explicit content in YA and I think that the intended target audience would appreciate it, especially the ones on the younger side.
I realise now that this whole thing is completely a personal preference and probably should be ignore when considering a series. I don’t think people care as much as I do about this topic nor would actually encounter these problems at all (considering we are all Christians here).
@joy-caroline
Just ignore no 1. It basically isn’t important at all. I didn’t think through the context for that one. Sorry about that.
No, I actually completely agree with you on content levels. That’s something I’m quite passionate about; explicit adult content (of any level of description; I do think such topics can be alluded to for edifying ends) should not be put in the YA section. It’s a stumbling block and it’s inappropriate. But I don’t think that more mature content and slightly older characters necessarily must go together. They certainly can, and that’s where NA and adult come in. But plenty of stories can be told about characters in their early 20s that don’t necessitate venturing into more mature topics. When stories do necessitate these progressions of theme as well as age, then I agree that it’s wiser to separate the YA from the NA or put both in NA.
Now, obviously the line is impossible to predict in the secular market, but the line is already far too young in the secular market anyway and I don’t think writing a handful of books with slightly older protagonists is going to alter that significantly; the line has already been crossed.
Speculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Singer. Worldbuilding enthusiast.
I completely agree with you! You put it much better than I did. XD
To be honest, considering everything you said, I definitely don’t think age doesn’t matter much. Probably a little but not in the way it does for me. I just happened to have characters in their 20s that deal with adult-like content but that fact doesn’t mean it automatically means all characters in their 20s can’t be in the YA fiction just because of their age. I realise that now. Also I know I’m being overly cautious right now (really just for the sake of my conscience at present) and will probably be less strict on the ages for myself later on. At my stage of writing, I guess it just helps me personally to be more mindful as I like to dig deeper into the hard and dark topics a lot for some reason. That’s just me though. I know that your recent story has main characters in their 20s (if I remembered their ages correctly) and I would put in the YA fiction section (though even people in middle grade would have no problem reading it too, if I’m correct on that). Like I said, I definitely didn’t think that one through. It just came to mind and I thought it was a good point to have with series? … I don’t agree with past me, considering everything we have discussed. Thanks for pointing it out!
It sounds like you have a good understanding of where lines need to be drawn in your own fiction! That’s an important understanding to have, and I’m glad you’re holding to that. 🙂
I was actually thinking about Calligraphy Guild (among other things) for parts of this conversation. XD The primary main character and her love interest are 17 and 19, respectively, but the others are in their 20s; you’re correct. And I intentionally wrote the book so that it would be safe for any of my younger siblings to read if they wanted to, though it’s ultimately a YA book and I also hope that the themes are deep enough to be appreciated by adult readers. I guess I’m almost trying to appeal to everyone. XD But I did write it primarily with a YA audience in mind.
I have other concepts for books, however, that would definitely fall into the NA or adult category even though the characters are the same ages as those in Calligraphy Guild. So it can certainly go both ways, not only from author to author but also from book to book.
I certainly think there’s a middle ground as far as older characters in YA, and I think we’ve worked our way to that middle ground pretty well through this conversation! Your initial assertion was definitely a good one to think about, and I’ve appreciated the discussion that came of it. 🙂
Speculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Singer. Worldbuilding enthusiast.
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@faith-q Ah, I see! I agree with you – plots that should belong in a series shouldn’t be stuffed into huge novels. With Les Mis as the exception, not the rule, of course!
@anatra23 Cool! And I like a book with a dramatic cliffhanger ending. XD
@daisy-torres That makes total sense! Thanks for your advice!
@lydia-s Haha, totally! There’s got to be good material for a series in an 800-page story. XD- Rank: Eccentric Mentor
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@issawriter7 Makes sense! A lot of people have mentioned that fantasy is a very good genre for series. I agree. With a contemporary romance, it really just depends if there’s more to tell. Thanks for the input!
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Wow, this is a really good discussion you’ve got started! I’ll put my two cents in and say that I think a good rule is to keep the MC around your audience’s age for the first book, but for the following books, it can be a wonderful experience to watch that MC change and grow. And as y’all mentioned, readers can grow with the character, or even younger readers will still enjoy the books and be inspired knowing that they will have an awesome journey of their own.
I see you’re also discussing NA and adult, which has got me thinking. I want my Biblical fiction to be targeted primarily for young teens because many teens aren’t interested in reading the Bible, and I really think that exciting and Spirit-filled Biblical fiction can change that for them. But in my St. Paul Biblical fiction, all the characters are adults with only a couple teenaged characters (Timothy and Paul’s first nephew, who don’t stay teenagers for very long anyway). Besides, Paul’s adopted nephew Seth is the most central character besides the adult ones, and he’s a young child throughout the whole story. Do you guys have any thoughts?
@joy-caroline
I think that can still work as YA. Based on my personal experience, though, you might have an easier time getting older teens to read about characters in a variety of ages than getting younger teens to read it. When I was a younger teen, I was much more into reading about teenagers, and it was only as I got older and more mature that I started to appreciate a broader variety; but, like I said, this is all just based on my experience so it could just be me.
The fact that Seth is younger might be a point in your favor, since some younger teens are still reading MG fiction (or just “outgrowing” it) and therefore still accustomed to younger characters.
Your purpose for writing is also important. If you’re writing to get teens interested in the Bible, then it makes sense to get them interested in older characters. There are young Bible characters (Jeremiah and David come to mind), but the bulk of the figures in the Bible are adults or at least age significantly over the course of the books that speak of them. So your purpose can make a difference in whether or not older characters will work well.
But I think the most important thing is to faithfully write what you’re called to write. If that’s YA fiction about mostly adult characters, write YA fiction about mostly adult characters; God will get it to its intended readers.
Speculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Singer. Worldbuilding enthusiast.
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Thank you so much! This all really helps, I’ll have to save it for future reference. 🙂
@joy-caroline
Awesome! I’m glad it was helpful. 🙂
Speculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Singer. Worldbuilding enthusiast.
*I definitely don’t think age does matter much. (Just wanted to clarify that because rereading the original line was confusing me so much and I had to use context of what I said later on to figured it out. XD)
Thank you! I do have to give you some credit for helping me better flesh out this understanding where I won’t limit myself from good options just because of being too strict about age. I genuinely appreciate it! 😀
Oh, I love how Calligraphy Guild is for everyone! That you’re clear about your target audience but also open to other audiences without compromising for one or the other, if that makes sense. Considering how a lot of adults and people in middle grade read YA fiction, it could reach out to those adults who either don’t mind clean YA or actually like to see clean YA and don’t expose younger readers to the explicit content that YA is displaying. It’s definitely a cool book!
Oh, that’s a good point! It’s so true! It really depends on the story and what it needs to talk about, and what the author wants readers to know about or think on because of the world, plot or what the characters are dealing with personally or in response to the world or plot.
For sure! My original statement works best in the planning/brainstorming stage of writing a story (being revised and updated with the new information from this discussion of course). It doesn’t have much place once you have set your tone for your story, unless you want to suddenly change it in the next book (which might be misleading but I’m not sure).
@joy-caroline
Ohhh, that’s a good rule to have! I should that in mind! 😀
I completely agree with everything @r-m-archer said! I was going to mention similar things to she what she talked about. I’m not sure about younger teens just wanting to read about teenagers, but I avoided YA as a young teen though because it was too scary to navigate at the time. Though once I was older, I was a lot more interested in reading outside my comfort zone, like trying new genres and I think that can be the same as having main characters with different ages (though I don’t really know as I haven’t experienced it).
I’m glad the conversation was a blessing!
Thank you! I really appreciate that. ^-^
Exactly.
I think I would agree with that. It can definitely be helpful to consider age when deciding what to include or not, what tone to go with or avoid, etc. as you’re thinking through a new idea.
I can see younger teens avoiding the YA section. Especially as it gets more and more adult. When I was a younger teen it was mostly safe for me to go through the YA section (and I had a knack for avoiding the books that did have stuff in them, even if I didn’t know that initially), but even in the few years since then it’s come to a point where my sister is the age I was then and there’s no way she walks through the YA section on her own. She reads YA almost exclusively based on recommendation, because the YA section has become a minefield when it comes to content. So it’s helpful that you brought that up. Young Christian teens today are probably more leery of the YA section than I was at that age. But, then again, maybe that provides an even better opportunity for promoting good biblical fiction as YA, since it would stand out as safe when so little is.
Speculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Singer. Worldbuilding enthusiast.
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