This
one’s coming off an article by Isaac Asimov I read recently. Inspired by correspondence
with a fan of his who wrote him about the prevalence of serial novels in recent
times. ‘It can be frustrating…,’ she
wrote.
Personally, I don’t take issues with continuity
in a plot, which takes multiple volumes to unfold, do you? I could list a
couple of books I would have appreciated as a series because I wanted to see more of
the characters.
And
now, the moment we have all been waiting for…
The
reasons writers create sequels.
1.
Publisher Pressure
J.
R. R. Tolkien’s trilogy was originally intended as a single volume publication
(Wikipedia still regards it as one book in its Bestselling Fiction List). But Tolkien’s publishers made him
reconsider; paper cost was their major excuse.
Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy was a compilation of separate pieces from Astounding Science Fiction between 1942 and 50. The stories were created at editorial insistence. And the fourth and fifth books in the series were dragged out him by his then publishers, Doubleday.
Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy was a compilation of separate pieces from Astounding Science Fiction between 1942 and 50. The stories were created at editorial insistence. And the fourth and fifth books in the series were dragged out him by his then publishers, Doubleday.
2.
Reader Pressure
Arthur
Conan Doyle is peculiar as an example of author victimization by his readers. Doyle
who is credited for creating the most adapted character in the fiction universe
made a grave ‘mistake’ and killed Sherlock
Holmes. You think it wasn’t a mistake? A. Conan Doyle probably thought the same
thing until fans expressed their indignation and demanded that Sherlock Holmes be
resurrected.
The author was forced to put his fictional character back in action after the series was already concluded in Doyle’s mind.
The author was forced to put his fictional character back in action after the series was already concluded in Doyle’s mind.
3.
Muse Pressure
The
sequelization (as Asimov calls it) of
a book can be the result of an idea that becomes too big for a single volume
publication.
Thomas Harris did it with his Hannibal set of novels; Tolkien with his
Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion and the Hobbits. In some peculiar cases, different writers have continued other
writer’s work with a different background and set of characters because the
original holds them in everlasting appeal. One striking example is suspense
writer, Dean Koontz with his Frankenstein
series.
Horror writer Stephen King
explains this process in his book, On
Writing:
“A thousand pages of Hobbits hasn’t been enough for three
generations of fantasy fans. Hence Terry Brooks, Piers Anthony, Robert Jordan,
and a half hundred others. The writers of these books are creating the hobbits
they still love and pine for; they are trying to bring Frodo and Sam back from
the Grey Havens because Tolkien is no longer around to do it for them.”
Stephen King,
On Writing, A Memoir of
the Craft.
Bram
Stoker and Stephen King have both published serial novels (not whole books with
a continuity of plot and character but a single volume published in four or
five batches). In Everything’s Eventual,
a collection of short stories by King, he gives us his reason for serializing
his books, The Green Mile and The Plant;
“It’s about trying to see the
act, art, and craft of writing in different ways, thereby refreshing the
process and keeping the resulting artifacts-the stories, in other words-as
bright as possible.”
I
love it when a favorite character makes a comeback. If that’s the reason for
serializing a work of fiction, I believe it’s a good and welcome enterprise.
Keep your pen bleeding.
Akpan
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