And Then…

I feel like I should start this post with an apology. I know I’ve been a horrible blogger lately, sorry about that. This happened last summer too. Once the sun starts shining, I want to spend all my free time out and about not at home at my computer blogging. I promise as soon as it starts raining again, I’ll be back to my normal posting schedule. But in the meantime, I actually have something to say today and figured I’d post a little witticism to hold you over until the clouds return.

So this week I’ve read two YA Paranormal stories that are parts of trilogies. A couple of days ago I read a book that features several different mythical creatures, but many of them are fairies, so I’m going to call it a fairy book. This fairy book is book two in a trilogy. Let me begin by saying that I LOVED book one. I LOVED everything about book one, and of course rushed to by book two the minute it came out (so if you are wondering what book I’m talking about it’s a sequel about fairies that came out last week). I did enjoy book two, but I didn’t love it as much as book one.

To give you even more hints about what book I’m referring to, I’ll let you know that the author of this series has an awesome blog that I was following way back when she first sold the rights to book one. So I feel like we’re friends, even though she doesn’t know me. Because we’re such close friends, I know that she originally wrote book one (which did I mention I LOVED) as a standalone book. But the publisher that bought it loved it so much they purchased it as a trilogy. So she then had to go and write books two and three.

The ending of this book wasn’t a climax so much as it was a set up, and I do believe that book three is going to be awesome. But honestly, book two wasn’t that fabulous. It felt like a 60k word connecting clause. It’s only point being to get the reader from the end of book one to the beginning of book three. All the wonderful characters I fell in love with in book one were back, so it was fun to hang out with them again, but there wasn’t very much going on, and if I hadn’t already read and loved the first book in the series I wouldn’t have cared.

But enough about fairies, now let’s talk about werewolves. The other book I read this week was the third book in a werewolf trilogy (can anyone guess which insanely popular book I’m talking about). I believe I read somewhere that this trilogy was also originally planned as a single book but then sold as a trilogy and had to be reworked to keep us eager fans happy. This series, however, has the opposite effect of the fairies series. I liked book one. It’s a cute love story about a girl and a werewolf that doesn’t come across as creepy or predatory the way a lot of paranormal romance does. But it was just a cute YA love story and I didn’t love it any more than any of the other millions of similar titles. Still I liked it enough to read book two, which amazingly had tension and mystery and could it be possible, a compelling plot.

So now book three of this puppy-love trilogy has just hit the shelves, and it may possibly be even better than book two. There is so much drama. New characters keep getting introduced and the old characters are becoming more complex, and it’s just all around fabulous. In fact, I’m almost upset that this author’s publishers didn’t decide to buy her standalone novel as a seven book series instead of just a trilogy. ‘Cause I know that any new adventure these characters were put into would be just that, a new adventure.

Now that I’ve been rambling for a while, I should probably come up with a point. So here it is. I’m not a fan of the forced series. Sure it works sometimes, like in this werewolf instance, but I think that is the fault of a faboulous author not a compelling series. As an aspiring author, I know I would be over the moon if a publisher told me that they wanted to take a standalone book I wrote and turn it into a trilogy. But it doesn’t always work out. Of course, we the fans read the later books. I mean words cannot describe how much I loved book one of that fairies series. Of course I preordered book two on amazon way before it was released. I just ended up feeling a little disappointed when it arrived on my kindle. And it’s not like I don’t read books that aren’t a part of a series by my favorite authors. I was beyond excited when I heard that Jay Asher has a new book coming out this fall, and obviously THIRTEEN REASONS WHY would never work as a trilogy.

So publishers (not that any publishers read this blog or anything), the next time you read an amazing standalone book that's on submission, maybe you should try publishing it as an amazing standalone book.