Single title or series?

[JenNipps]

Do you think mainstream/contemporary lends itself to series as much as other genres or are standalone titles more appropriate?

[maestrowork]

Not that I'm aware of... I think mainstream is usually stand-alone. I could be wrong. I'm sure there are some marvelous mainstream series out there. But FLOM, I can't think of any.

[JenNipps]

Not that I'm aware of... I think mainstream is usually stand-alone. I could be wrong. I'm sure there are some marvelous mainstream series out there. But FLOM, I can't think of any.

I honestly have no idea either. I just decided to throw this one out here this morning and see what came up. lol. I had quite a few ideas of what to do here before I left for the conference last week, but I didn't make any notes and now I don't know what in the world I was thinking of doing.

[AmyBA]

Do you think mainstream/contemporary lends itself to series as much as other genres or are standalone titles more appropriate?

Mainstream can lend itself to series-- Jan Karon's Mitford series, Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilt series, and Adriana Trigiani's Big Stone Gap trilogy come to mind.

I think there are key characteristics that make for a good mainstream series, in comparison to other genres, though. For example, in a mystery series, the detective solves a new case in every book, but the detective can remain static (but doesn't have to, of course). In a mainstream series, the characters can recur, but usually move forward in time-- i.e. in the Mitford series, the main character meets a woman, who in subsequent books he develops a relationship with.

I don't know if I'm explaining this very well...

[JenNipps]

I don't know if I'm explaining this very well...

It makes sense to me.

I think I'll look around a bit the next time I go to the bookstore and see what I can find in the way of mainstream series. More for personal curiosity than anything else, really.

[maestrowork]

The only mainstream/contemporary series I'm aware of is the Tales of the City books... because I saw the miniseries.

[LightShadow]

Series are possible, but not numbered. It's more like sequels, I suppose.