Mark Blumenthal (blumenidiot@21stcentury.net)
Thu, 23 Dec 1999 13:26:53 -0600
Mark Sullivan
> Loren Estleman had initially made a rule that he
would never carry a
> character for more than 7 books.
>
> Perhaps it is a good rule, not just for him, but for
all series writers.
> Stark's Parker is among the very few series that
really works past that
> number and even in this case, the early ones were
the best.
I think a writer has inspiration and freshness in the first
book, and maybe the second, that is lost in succeeding
volumes of a series. Once the first book is popular a writer
has to produce more about the same characters because there
is a built in readership even though there is not much more
to say. If you depend on writing for a living it is very
difficult to take the risk of stopping the writing of almost
guaranteed money makers. It's the same thing in movies. Was
there anything new in Did we really need a Rocky III...? Of
the James Bond films From Russia with Love was the best in
the series.
It's not only a recent phenomenom. Doyle tried to kill off
Holmes but couldn't. The public demanded more Holmes and
their income allowed Doyle to write what he thought were his
important works, historical novels like The White Company
which are forgotten today.
I agree with Mark about the Parker books sustaining quality.
The later books of the originsl series and those of the
recent continuation are good, but I miss the stripped down
180 page early ones. Mrk
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