The new fad in writing seems to be the series. You know the ones: multiple books in the same fictional world, oftentimes about the same characters. Sometimes there are only 3, also known as the trilogy, and sometimes there are 13 books about the same characters in the same world. While this isn't necessarily a new fad, it seems to be getting more and more popular.
It all started with the long romance series, but those died out pretty quickly. They still exist, but mostly the only people who read them are book clubs.
Then came Twilight. Yes, I know. The dreaded Twilight. However, as much as you don't want to admit it, Twilight was a huge hit back in the day. I read the whole series when I was in middle school, and I loved it. As a 12 year old girl, it was a great book. And secretly we all know that almost everyone has read it at some point or another, and this series started a trend. It made a lot of money, and as a result, a lot of authors "followed the money."
Twilight became very popular, and so, it started a trend. Soon, we had Suzanne Collins writing The Hunger games and Veronica Roth gifting us with Divergent. Not to mention Harry Potter, which began publishing before any of the other series, and has continued releasing not only books but movies up until just last month, and will probably continue for a long time. But the real question is, what's all the hype with series?
As a reader, I hate that I love series, and here's why: they're time consuming. Yes, I read the whole Harry Potter series in a week and a half, but that's only because I couldn't put it down. I did almost nothing except read for that whole week and a half, because I just wanted to get it done. Not that I don't LOVE Harry Potter, but I just don't have the time to read sometimes. When I do have the time I binge read, especially when I'm reading a series.
Sometimes they can get daunting. I read a series called The Remaining (which was very good overall and I highly recommend it), but when you have six or seven books that are at least 500 pages each, it can be intimidating, which can almost make you not want to read. Almost.
Some series should have ended four books ago. The Percy Jackson series, for instance, is a series which changes characters around the fourth or the fifth book, as does The Uglies series. If you have no more to write about with your characters, move on to a new novel, a new series, or a new world. If the new characters don't meet the old characters in the novel, it can usually be determined as a flop. At that point, the author is just trying to squeeze one more bestseller out before they move on to something else. J.K. Rowling is, once again, the perfect example of this. Her new play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, is about Harry Potter's son, Albus, who is now going to Hogwarts. No spoilers, but obviously we meet some of the old characters along the way, as well as some new ones. In addition to including the old characters in the new plot, she also used a completely different platform, using a play instead of a full-out novel to get a feel for what her readers and fans wanted (I don't think anyone is surprised to find that everyone wanted exactly this and more).
While I may hate on series and complain about them, in truth I enjoy them. The Remaining series was one of the most suspenseful series I've ever read. I loved the end of the Divergent series more than probably any other book I've ever read, and when I saw the end of Allegiant, I literally screamed bloody murder in the middle of the movie theater because they changed the ending (again, no spoilers, but if you read the book, prepare yourselves). While I didn't agree with the end of Mockingjay, I still loved the series as a whole. And honestly, who can hate Harry Potter? In reality, there is absolutely nothing wrong with an author writing a series, but sometimes they go a little overboard.
