Over the years, there has been a number of novel series that I’ve read and enjoyed. Some are still going, some I stuck with through to the end, some kind of fell by the wayside.
Every so often, I think about some of the ones that I lost track of. More importantly, I think about why they got away from me. As someone who is supposed to be writing a series, I suppose it would pay me to think about that; if there’s something to be learned or avoided.
The trouble is, that now that I come to think about it, I’m not sure there’s a single reason common to the series that I’ve stopped. Of the ones that come to mind right now; one was because I got frustrated with the style of writing, one was because I started to dislike the main character and one was because I kept getting lost with what was happening.
Can I do anything to avoid those reasons with House Valerius? Well, yes and no. Well, I can do my best not to lose people, although I do want to make it challenging enough to keep people interested. But, as for the other two, well, I think they’re a bit too subjective. I can only write the way I think I should be writing and I can only write my characters the way I think they should be written. People will either go along with that or they won’t. You can’t please everyone.
But it has to be said, for each one abandoned like those above (and there may be others I just can’t remember right now), there are at least two or three where I always intended to keep going but something happened. Most likely, I got distracted by something new (or a squirrel) while waiting for the next book to come out. And then by the time I came back around to them, there were two or three books to catch up on.
Maybe I should be looking to catch up on some of these, especially since I’m trying to hit my Goodreads goal. Or maybe go back to some of those other ones and re-evaluate. After all, I might have just been at the wrong stage in my life to appreciate them.
The Scribblings 