Series--thrill or threat?

[sartorias]

Over at the Tor.com site, Jane Lindskold talks about series and stand-alones. The nice thing is, she doesn't sneer. I've taken to avoiding the sneer posts. Most of the time they just slang fat fantasy altogether (lumping it all together) or point to one or two examples that the poster didn't like, and again assuming they are All The Same. Life's

Comments

[asakiyume]

If you never get bored, then you are my target audience :D

Well... I suppose one answer to your question is the beta reader, though, as you've pointed out in other posts, we need fresh people who are not too forgiving of our quirks or too familiar with our worlds.

I think, for me, I feel I'm beginning to cross a line when I feel I've altered the plot just to work in some research material... but hmm, not always. If it fits in smoothly, if it makes it extra interesting...

Okay, back to beta readers, I guess :-P

[sartorias]

Wrenching the plot to fit a thing in can tend to create Datadump Bits, but what if research opens a new door that you thought was a wall? And you just have to walk outside, because it gives you a wider view of the whole?

[asakiyume]

That seems all to the good. I think I had something like that. I had an element of a story, and it was mainly decorative, and then, with a little more research, I found a way to make it play a more important part (I think... I hope). So, yeah, I do think that what you describe can happen, and be good.

I have to ask myself--is this helping the story build or maintain momentum? Or is this charging us off down a blind alley, which we'll then have to laboriously return from?

[sartorias]

Sometimes answering that question is . . . complicated.

[asakiyume]

You're speaking from experience. I guess sometimes you just have to write it and see how it feels. And ask other people--all of which you do. Maybe there's no surefire answer...

[starshipcat]

Or worse, when your research reveals that a key story element is simply unworkable and will have to be torn out and replaced with something else -- but you literally can't imagine the story happening any other way?

I've got a story that is pretty much permanently dead in the water for that simple reason. It's a story I like, but if I were to try to forcibly rewrite it to "correct" it, it would simply shrivel up and die.

[sartorias]

Oh, argh, that's a real downer.

[marycatelli]

I only got as far as an outline when research tossed one story idea -- but it hurt even then.

[rysmiel]

Or worse, when your research reveals that a key story element is simply unworkable and will have to be torn out and replaced with something else -- but you literally can't imagine the story happening any other way?

One reason why I write genre is the possibility of someing up with explanations of why this world is not like the contemporary world in such a way as to allow the things my research shows to be not workable in the real world.