McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
POV's and whatnot
Anei:
Does anyone have any opinions about switching 1st person POVs between completed works? ie short stories from different characters' perspectives that are all part of a cohesive story arc. Does anyone know of any works that pull this off, either as a series of short stories or novels?
Quantus:
Off-hand the animorph novels I read as a kid did that, they came out each month (thanks to ghost writers) and each book (there were like 50 of them before the end) rotated between the POV of the 5-6 main characters, with the occasional special issue that would alternate each chapter. It worked well in that instance, but I think a big reason it was able to pull it off was that it had sooo many books in the series before the end, and they came out very often. This way you could cover the POV of the whole ensemble, and each would get several books. If you were talking about a classic trilogy that had a different 1st POV for each book, that would be a little harder to balance, and you probably wouldnt get a chance to return to the POV's.
Anei:
I'm thinking a little larger-scale than a trilogy, more like a serial. But I don't know if I can produce quickly enough to make it enjoyable. Maybe I should write a few and hoard them...
Wordmaker:
One book a year is perfectly doable and appropriate for a series.
The Deposed King:
--- Quote from: Wordmaker on July 10, 2013, 10:01:46 PM ---One book a year is perfectly doable and appropriate for a series.
--- End quote ---
I would quibble with this. To my mind your statement would be true if:
1) you are working for a publisher
2) writing is a part time job
3) writing is just something you do for fun and to see if you are any good/can make some money
However the successful indie guys I've been watching. They all write a book every 3-4 months without fail. Go any longer than that and as an indie guy you start to lose the interest of your readers but more importantly sales fall off to nothing. My advice would be that if you want to see if you're any good write whatever. But at the point you're ready to go serious and writing is your full time job. Then its got to be 3 books minimum per year on your mainline series and the other one per year can be whatever.
That said you can cheat around this 3-4 books a year writing plan if you've got a backlist of books you've already written and just slowly intersperse them in amongst your new writing.
On the making a living off your writing front you could sacrifice readers continued interest if you're getting a couple sales per day off your backlist.
But that's just my 0.02c
Its all about life goals and choices.
The Deposed King
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