Into the Fire

Okay. Most all avid novel readers involve themselves in a series at some point. Most of us expect various types of series. In the O’Malley Series, a bestselling and popular series by author Dee Henderson, the individual members of a self-adopted family occupy each book with an obvious connection to one another running throughout the featured story of the family member. In Kristen Heitzmann’s series, Secrets, Unforgotten, and Echoes, the first book focuses on the heroine’s history but brings in the protagonist who is more heavily featured in the second book, and in the third book of the series a sister to the protagonist is added as the featured character while keeping the heroine and protagonist in focus.

In the Patrick Bowers Thrillers by Steven James, Special Agent Patrick Bowers faces new cases in each novel but there are carry-over character references besides his family and coworkers. In Robert Liparulo’s Dreamhouse Kings Series for young adults each new book begins where the previous book left off and is told in increments of minutes, hours, and days often taking a closer look at one particular family member’s response to the plight of each traumatic encounter.

While the cliffhanger endings are both popular and frequently used, I think it should be a requirement that publishers of those novels in a series which choose to end this way should be required to produce the next in line within a six month period. Longer than that—and they very often arrive a year later—a reader can lose the fervor and fact retention of the previous story. I don’t want to have to dig out the previous novel and thumb through it to refresh my memory of villains, circumstances, and states of minds which have vacated the premises of my mind some 100 novels later. I retain the basic scenarios, but the intricate facts which occupied the previous novel and perhaps culminated in that cliffhanger ending have long since retired to places unknown.

It’s not uncommon to have series novels end more precisely with an allusion to future stories, especially in the first book. It’s far more reasonable to make a reader wait for the next book with this approach. With these types the details are less cumbersome and pressing, and one can remember good characters—and evil ones—without much effort. However, when an author presents the reader with a complex plot, multiple twists, more than one villain, and lots of peripheral character intersections, it’s asking too much for a reader to retain the intensity of that story and enter into the new story one year later well-prepared to carry on just as he/she left off.

There is a bit of a risk involved, too. If the reader decides in book three, which ends in a cliffhanger, that the wait isn’t going to be worth it for whatever reason, that reader might just abandon the series. One lukewarm offering in the series and with a long wait, the author can lose a piece of his audience. Something to consider anyway.

Personally, I’m not fond of cliffhangers because of the wait for resolution. I don’t mind some loose ends, some villains left uncaught, some relationships still tenuous, but when you pile up the unresolved circumstances and then the book ends, it angers me. Especially when I have to wait a year to find out how this story will ultimately turn out. Unfair in my book. I wouldn’t mind so much if the next one came out six months later, but a full year? It tempts me to quit on it. Tempts. I would rather read a saga or two than be left dangling for a year from a cliffhanger.

Obviously it isn’t a concern for the publishers who produce them, huh?

Lord, thank you for enticing stories that minister truth along the way. Thank you for authors who desire to include more than entertainment and achieve their goal. Thank you for the multi-talented writers who honor you with their gifts and talents. I pray I would also keep you in the forefront of everything I do. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.