Leaving aside the copy edit chores (still going on), I’m thinking what to do about the difficulties inherent in a tenth book…when it’s considered as an entry point for new readers.\u00a0\u00a0 The copy editor (and maybe editor–comments are in two colors of pencil, which is often indicative of two persons) feels that something isn’t clear enough for new readers.\u00a0\u00a0 But that assumes this book–the fifth of Paladin’s Legacy, the tenth overall of Paksworld–can function as an entry point for new readers.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
It really can’t, in my opinion.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Multi-volume stories, as opposed to true series stories,\u00a0 become increasingly difficult to get into as they go on through the volumes, because much more material accumulates over time.\u00a0\u00a0 Compared to mystery serials, for instance–among my favorites, Tony Hillerman’s Southwestern ones with Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee–a multi-volume story is much more complex.\u00a0\u00a0 Hillerman’s stories run only a few character arcs: Leaphorn’s (as he copes with his wife’s illness and death, and then his new relationship with Louisa), and Chee’s (as he struggles with his incompatible desires to be a shaman and a policeman, and also find a wife and start a family.)<\/p>\n
Every book is centered by a mystery, which takes up most of the space, so these character story arcs present only small chunks in any given volume, and a reader who is mystery-based doesn’t need to know them to enjoy a good mystery.\u00a0 They enrich, but do not dominate…these character arcs remain sidebars to the mysteries, and a reader can enter anywhere in the series, reading backwards or forwards, skipping volumes they can’t find, without losing ground.<\/p>\n
But a multi-volume novel (or story, if you prefer)\u00a0 is constructed differently: the main part of it is the long character arc (or arcs, in my books)\u00a0 and every volume builds on the preceding one.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Motivations arise in early volumes that maybe expressed in later ones–where they make little sense if you haven’t read the earlier ones.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There may be more than one logical entry point, but to really grasp what’s going on, the reader needs to know the whole story.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Up to a point, a writer can sneak in useful bits of back story to help out new readers, but the point comes when that does not work.\u00a0 There’s too much back story, too much “family history” and “You had to be there.”\u00a0 Trying to put in all the hints and clues and details a new reader might need overloads the story itself, drags it to a creeping pace that (for readers who aren’t new)\u00a0 is boring, disappointing, annoying.<\/p>\n
With books, you can<\/em> be there–you can read the previous books and find out what happened, why this character now acts as he\/she does,\u00a0 why A distrusts B, and so on.\u00a0\u00a0 But you can’t be there without finding and reading the other books.\u00a0\u00a0 If you start with the last (because, perhaps, you just discovered this writer…something I’ve done often enough)\u00a0 and find yourself confused and even frustrated,\u00a0 the cure–if you like what you’re reading enough–is to find the previous books.\u00a0\u00a0 Ask other fans for an alternate place to start if “the beginning” is too far back.<\/p>\n By this time in the group, in my opinion, there’s too much going on, too many important characters, too many arcs, too many lines of plot, for someone to pick it up and start with “Winter storms, one after another, cut off the high plateau of Andressat from the lowlands around as Midwinter Feast neared.”\u00a0\u00a0 I wrote a foreword that I hope will help, but even so…it’s more for those who have read other books in the groups, but not the The Legacy of Gird<\/em>.<\/p>\n This book is for those who know where Andressat is, and what the Count of Andressat is like, and what Midwinter Feast means, and do not need Guild League and Fox Company and Golden Company and the northern kingdoms and the Elder Races, and magelords and Old Humans all explained to them.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s for good readers with good memories, because it’s long, complicated, and gives not much quarter.\u00a0\u00a0 Not that I wasn’t willing, but…time and length are both a factor in all books.\u00a0\u00a0 The book could have been longer.\u00a0 Much, much longer.<\/p>\n I’m trying to think how to retrofit more into it, if that’s demanded, but I’m hoping it won’t be.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Everything a reader needs is already there, in one of the other books (most of it in the new series, some in the older books.)\u00a0 Putting it in again in a way that’s not infodump won’t be easy.\u00a0 Wish me luck.\u00a0 (And I’m going back to work late tonight,\u00a0 still playing catch-up for the days I was sick.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leaving aside the copy edit chores (still going on), I’m thinking what to do about the difficulties inherent in a tenth book…when it’s considered as an entry point for new readers.\u00a0\u00a0 The copy editor (and maybe editor–comments are in two colors of pencil, which is often indicative of two persons) feels that something isn’t clear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[107],"class_list":["post-1954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-writing-life","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1955,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions\/1955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}