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Similar to what has already been said, but I'd say do what they do in long-running television series. In Law and Order, they have mostly single episodes dealing with a new criminal. Same in many de...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-19T22:13:34Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39323 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T09:55:56Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39323 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Similar to what has already been said, but I'd say do what they do in long-running television series. In _Law and Order_, they have mostly single episodes dealing with a new criminal. Same in many detective stories or variants of Sherlock Holmes like _Monk_ or _Elementary_ or _The Mentalist_. The same in many hospital shows like _House_ or _Scrubs_, another disease or new issue shows up. Same in _Buffy_, as Galastel points out. Same in Military Mission shows, like _Seals_, or other savior missions, like _Leverage_ or the old _Mission Impossible_, same in political shows, like _Madam Secretary_, similar in _Star Trek_, all the mysteries of the universe and cultures is never ending. And on and on. If there is any arc for the main character(s), it is a very slow moving one, aimed to run for seven seasons or more. For a book, the approximate life of the series. But your main characters can also remain static and not evolve, the trick then is to bring in new characters and let **them** have character arcs. You avoid spectacle creep by devising a dynamic that does not allow it. In part, that can be by never _really_ defeating the bad guys. _House_ never cured all diseases. Sherlock never solves all crime, Madam Secretary never brings permanent world peace, the military never defeats all terrorism, the cops never finish locking up predators. You make your story the same, whatever your heroes can do, will simply never be enough to permanently end the underlying source of conflict. In a way, Spectacle Creep happens because you DO solve giant problems. Think of your series more like Star Trek or a Detective Series. Your heroes are present with a problem, the readers have fun watching them having a harrowing adventure solving the problem, and they look forward to the next such adventure with no expectation of the stakes getting any higher.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2018-10-10T19:12:40Z (about 6 years ago)
Original score: 4