After over two decades I'm breaking up!

[idontknowyet]

That's right it's been over 20 years since I first started reading this author's books and I am officially done. I broke one of my rules and looked that author up on the internet. Normally I am the person that lets the book stand up for itself. I don't care what the author thinks feels or says outside of the pages of the book I'm reading. The sad thing is it isn't that I object to her personally. I disagree with the path she's taking the the series on. I've never seen someone lose her characters and genre so completely. I shouldn't be surprised I've seen this coming for the last several books, but it tears me up.

I can't tell you how many times over the years I've bought then rebought her books over and over again and I'm finally done.

Why do author's spend books and books developing who characters are then decide eh I want to do something different? Or i want to become repetative but call my books new and fresh?

[David VanDyke]

It takes a lot more creative energy to write books than read them.

Authors run out of that juice after a while--if they can't generate any enthusiasm for their own characters, they are unlikely to write enjoyable books. Just the way it is.

[Paranormal Kitty]

Some authors keep the same series going for way too long. They either don't know how to end it on high note or don't care because it's making money, or maybe don't want to disappoint the fans. Same thing happens with a lot of television series.

[Shane]

I too am aghast that Paul Sheldon would kill off Misery Chastain so unceremoniously. I kid, I kid

[Scrapper78]

My current series is at six books and i am done with it for a while. It's just getting too hard to find new and exiting ways to challenge the characters without wildly changing the formula. They've all had a character arc, experienced growth, etc.  After 650,000 words I'm just not psyched to write about them anymore.

Starting a new series, and can already feel that creative surge again.

[munboy]

Like David said, she probably just got bored with the characters/story. Sounds like she went about trying to fix that the wrong way. She should have just brought the series to a satisfying end and started something new instead of changing the well-known characters and shoehorning them into a different genre.

[Jeff Tanyard]

I too am aghast that Paul Sheldon would kill off Misery Chastain so unceremoniously. I kid, I kid

 

[Bill Hiatt]

My current series is at six books and i am done with it for a while. It's just getting too hard to find new and exiting ways to challenge the characters without wildly changing the formula. They've all had a character arc, experienced growth, etc.  After 650,000 words I'm just not psyched to write about them anymore.

Starting a new series, and can already feel that creative surge again.

That is one of the best ways to get the juices flowing again.

[She-la-te-da]

She'd probably love to quit writing that series, but the fans keep urging her on, begging her not to stop.

[Bill Hiatt]

While in theory a series could continue forever, I think a series built around a continuing cast of characters can only go so far before it's hard to find new developments that are plausible. One good example of this problem is some of the daytime soap operas. After a few years, the relationships have been remixed so often to generate new tensions that the dynamics are no longer credible. I sometimes see a similar problem in fantasy, where a particular group of people faces so many supernatural problems that willing suspension of disbelief becomes strained.

[Jessica]

While in theory a series could continue forever, I think a series built around a continuing cast of characters can only go so far before it's hard to find new developments that are plausible. One good example of this problem is some of the daytime soap operas. After a few years, the relationships have been remixed so often to generate new tensions that the dynamics are no longer credible. I sometimes see a similar problem in fantasy, where a particular group of people faces so many supernatural problems that willing suspension of disbelief becomes strained.

I wonder how as author one could avoid this. Obviously an ongoing series has to be written/ planned differently than one that ends after its predefined 3, 6 or 12 books. Also: Do characters have to grow significantly in one book in an ongoing series, or at all at some point? Like in real life we're challanged with different issues at different times, and sometimes it's not about personal growth as it is about "just surviving".