From the start - the moment I put fingers to keyboard - I was aware that writing a series of books is both a curse and a blessing. The blessing is pretty obvious – a series allows the writer to keep churning out book after book with the same characters, allowing enormous story arcs and if done right, a series can recruit legions of fans. And, at the moment, publishers do love a crime or fantasy series.But there is also the curse. You see, once you start writing a series, you have to see it through to the end, usually without any interruption, which can be slightly annoying if there are other projects you want to pursue alongside the series. And not just annoying for the writer, but for the reader too.
Any Clive Barker fan or Stephen King fan will tell you that they’ve been chewing their fingers to the wrists in anticipation of the Third Book of the Art, or in King’s case the completion of his Dark Tower series (which he has now done, but after countless interludes from other books). You can’t just keep palming off your readers while they wait at the edge of the cliff. As often happens, the readers tend to walk away, losing interest (more so these days – we are a generation, it appears, blessed with a wickedly short attention span).
As a relatively young writer – a new writer – I am in the lucky position of being allowed to make fundamental mistakes with my writing career (I’m not being ironic here either, I do feel lucky that I am in that position of being able to choose a writing path, living and dying by it). I made a decision early this year to take a break from writing the third book in the Secret War series. It wasn’t an easy decision, but I thought a break in the series would refresh my imagination. Too often, I’ve found third acts feel jaded – a tired writing and plotting of a writer that has done too much too soon on one storyline. I didn’t want that. The Traitor of Light will be an ambitious novel, perhaps not in length (we’ll leave that to book 4: The Fortress of Black Glass) but definitely in scope. I wanted to come to it invigorated, to make book 3 the best book so far (that’s my ambition – for each book to be better than the previous).
However, part of me wonders whether or not it was a good idea. I mean, lets say Pan Macmillan do take book 3, it will probably mean a publishing date of 2011 at the earliest, more realistically 2012. That’s over three years away. Can readers wait three years for another book in a series?
This lag would reduce somewhat if I was writing full-time, true, but being realistic unless, The Secret War and The Hoard of Mhorrer hit the bestseller lists in the next six months or so, I won’t be giving up the day job.
So, I guess the question is this: should a writer devote his time singularly to a series, as Robert Jordan (The Wheel of Time) did? Or can a writer get away with diverting his energies once in a while, promising to return sharpish to the series at hand?
There is also another question alongside this: is it a wise idea to start a large writing project knowing too well that a baby is around the corner and disruption is inevitable?
Any Clive Barker fan or Stephen King fan will tell you that they’ve been chewing their fingers to the wrists in anticipation of the Third Book of the Art, or in King’s case the completion of his Dark Tower series (which he has now done, but after countless interludes from other books). You can’t just keep palming off your readers while they wait at the edge of the cliff. As often happens, the readers tend to walk away, losing interest (more so these days – we are a generation, it appears, blessed with a wickedly short attention span).
As a relatively young writer – a new writer – I am in the lucky position of being allowed to make fundamental mistakes with my writing career (I’m not being ironic here either, I do feel lucky that I am in that position of being able to choose a writing path, living and dying by it). I made a decision early this year to take a break from writing the third book in the Secret War series. It wasn’t an easy decision, but I thought a break in the series would refresh my imagination. Too often, I’ve found third acts feel jaded – a tired writing and plotting of a writer that has done too much too soon on one storyline. I didn’t want that. The Traitor of Light will be an ambitious novel, perhaps not in length (we’ll leave that to book 4: The Fortress of Black Glass) but definitely in scope. I wanted to come to it invigorated, to make book 3 the best book so far (that’s my ambition – for each book to be better than the previous).However, part of me wonders whether or not it was a good idea. I mean, lets say Pan Macmillan do take book 3, it will probably mean a publishing date of 2011 at the earliest, more realistically 2012. That’s over three years away. Can readers wait three years for another book in a series?
This lag would reduce somewhat if I was writing full-time, true, but being realistic unless, The Secret War and The Hoard of Mhorrer hit the bestseller lists in the next six months or so, I won’t be giving up the day job.
So, I guess the question is this: should a writer devote his time singularly to a series, as Robert Jordan (The Wheel of Time) did? Or can a writer get away with diverting his energies once in a while, promising to return sharpish to the series at hand?
There is also another question alongside this: is it a wise idea to start a large writing project knowing too well that a baby is around the corner and disruption is inevitable?
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