The friend of my friend. . .

[rolanni]

Off on another part of Teh Intertubes, a colleague is writing the last book of a series, and is experiencing separation grief.

During our interview at ConQuesT, I made the comment in reply to. . .something, that readers and writers have a different relationship with the writer’s characters; with readers experiencing something like a traditional, real-world “friendship” with those characters they’ve come to like.  The relationship between an author and her characters is more nearly collaborative, and while I do love my children, I don’t worry about them to the extent that some readers report.

Back at. . . Duckon, I think it was, a few years ago, I happened to overhear a young lady in the hallway between panels who was being congratulated by her colleagues for having made an author on a previous panel (on what I suppose was fan fic) break down and cry.  “She had to be made to understand,” the young lady was saying, very sternly, “that she doesn’t own those characters just because she made them up.  They belong to us, because we give them life!”  (Yes, I did check.  No, I didn’t start in with the young lady then and there.  This is entirely due to the fact that Steve grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hall to our next event.)

All of these things, though, speak to the “reality” of fictional characters, and the hold they have over the minds and hearts of readers (and writers, too, if we do only make them up).  My colleague who is wrapping up the series wonders what will happen to their beloved characters in the minds of readers, once their story is told; and if readers will also experience grief, knowing that this is the last book.

I have my own opinions on this (quelle surprise!), but I’d like to hear yours:  How do you handle the ending of a series?  What’s your relationship with — and your responsibilities toward — people who live in books?

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[jessie-c.livejournal.com]

I experience a certain amount of withdrawl when a good series ends. This is especially vivid if the series ends from a case of author existence failure. A case in point being Patrick O'Brien midway through book #21. Even though Blue at the Mizzen gave Jack Aubrey his Flag, bringing him to the long-awaited pinnacle of his career and the Napoleanic wars finally ended, I still wanted to see how the story would have continued. By contrast, the Sharpe and Ramage books, each individually as exciting as any of Jack Aubrey's adventures just didn't wrap me so far into the story simply because they're too formulaic; they got predictable, stale and unappealing enough that I welcomed the end when it came. I've worn the words off the pages of my Aubrey books from re-re-re-reading while the others languish on the back of the bookshelves or have been banished to the used book store.

Certain other series become wallbangers (I'm looking at you, Piers Anthony) and I gleefully abandon them to the obscurity they should richly deserve but unacountably don't. Others Like Raymond Feist's Riftwar saga evolve, change and grow, leaving once-favourite characters behind to explore the expliots of new characters and even complete changes of scene. I can live with that. The Discworld books do the same (and the impending author existence failure looms ever larger in my dread. It will be a devastating day for Literature when Pterry pulls his plug. Long may that sad day be postponed).

This evolution is where I see you going with your Korval stories. You have a universe wherein you play and gleefully mine whole swaths of it intead of dogmatically sticking to a small group of characters. Your stories are ever fresh yet still familiar as an old well-loved coat that keeps the reader warm and happy.

[attilathepbnun.livejournal.com]

That depends on how it ends! If everyone's dead, well, that's difficult ...
But if everyone(the good guys)are, mostly, still alive, it doesn't *feel* like the series is ended. It feels like it's just being a rather long time until the next book ...