How To Write A Series - 03 - Expanse
A story requires a certain heft or breath or extension to justify a series -- what I'll call expanse. But it also needs a degree of cohesion to link the volumes of the series. This tension between expanse and cohesion is what makes for a good series. Expanse can apply to one or more categories: 1. Length Length is the first obvious test of a series. Some series are essentially one long story , split into separate volumes mostly for convenience. Possibly, as digital books replace paper books, the rational behind splitting the books up will not be a strong. We might see some authors publishing 500,000 or 1,000,000 word "novels." But I suspect even in that case, the story would be subdivided into sections of some sort. The cohesion of a long story is easy to see if it has the same protagonists, antagonists, theme and story arc. 2. Cast Cast is the number of major players involved in the story. The basic rule of thumb is that the more major characters there are --...