Episode 218: Writing and Reading Book Series

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Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re talking about reading and writing books in a series.

In this episode, we’re talking the specifics of book series — meaning connected stories where there are four or more — and we dig into some of the different series types and the genres where we tend to see them most.

There are three main types:

Serial: which features an overarching narrative told in several, (often chronological) installments. Used often in Fantasy. Ex. Game of Thrones, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter
Episodic: can be read in any order, the stories often feature one consistent protagonist. Used often in Mystery and Thrillers. Ex. Poirot, James Bond
Interlinked: features characters within the same universe, but often has individual stories that focus on a different character or couple. Used often in Romance. Ex. Bridgerton, Beach Reads/People We Meet on Vacation/Booklovers/Happy Place

We note that stories can also cross into more than one category and the Chronicles of Narnia is a good example of a series of stories that cross these categories.

Throughout this discussion, we talk about the pros and cons of these different types of examples where it’s done well and what the storytelling benefits can be — as well as what ones we enjoy most as readers and how the authors use the large scope of series storytelling to create a deeply connected story or a wide world of interesting characters. This also leads us to talk about Marvel and how all of the weight of individual stories that came before allowed the character losses in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame to emotionally land with the audience. The same can also be said of the characters lost in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where many of them had been with us for over five books of storytelling.

Towards the end of our conversation we talk about subtly and directly planting questions as well as how addictive a serialized series can be and how reading a few often keeps you coming back over and over again based on your initial investment of time. Even if the writing falls off, if the questions that are being asked and the answers that are being teased and then paid off feel rewarding we feel you’re a lot more likely to stick with it then a standalone story.

We hope you enjoy this episode, we had such a fun time with this conversation! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

The Verbivore opens by talking about three different types of series. Those breakdowns came from this article: