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Q&A Series: Is there a disadvantage to the number of books?

The number of books in the series is irrelevant. What matters is whether you still have story to tell. JK Rowling planned the Potter series to have seven books; Harry's arc is finished. GRRMartin...

posted 9y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:25Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/13053
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:47:47Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/13053
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T03:47:47Z (over 4 years ago)
The number of books in the series is irrelevant. What matters is whether you still have story to tell.

JK Rowling planned the Potter series to have seven books; Harry's arc is finished. GRRMartin originally planned for four, but he's got so much to say that he's expanded to at least seven (and eight wouldn't surprise me if he lives that long). David Eddings's Belgariad was written as three books, but the publisher broke it somewhat arbitrarily into five. CE Murphy's Walker Papers needed 10 books and a novella to complete Joanne's story.

Conversely, I thought Carol Berg's _Transformation_ was a perfect standalone, and I disliked the second and third in the rai-kirah trilogy. I thought the concepts introduced were boring and obscure, and didn't add anything.

So it doesn't matter how many books are in the series. It matters whether the characters still have interesting things to do, and whether we care about them doing those things. That can take one book or twenty.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2014-10-08T21:31:32Z (over 9 years ago)
Original score: 3