Serializing Novels

On lesser known writers serializing works

George Lucas once said that, when he made the first Star Wars movie, he "didn't really know what [he] was doing." He'd made a couple movies, but none of them were hits of the massive scale. American Graffiti did pretty well, but nothing he had ever done up to that point had been a major success story.

This was where he began when he made the first Star Wars movie, which by the way was originally a B-movie (it didn't cost a huge amount of money in moviemaking terms.)

Yet he called his first Star Wars movie Episode IV. And he made it in such a way that it could be a standalone piece if it must, with just enough of the unfinished business at the end to justify a serial.

He had actually intended all the movies to be one gigantic piece, but he realized it would have been much too long for a single film.

The point I'm making is that when Lucas made the first Star Wars movie, he had serialized it, and at the same time he himself was not a huge name in the business. He was known, but not to the point that he is known today.

If he could make it happen--in the same way and under much the same circumstances as Gene Roddenberry did with Star Trek--then IMO it is very feasible that anyone can do it, provided their original piece can work as a standalone should it not be the major success that the writer hopes it will be.

Just my opinion. I hope it helps.

I don't know about titles, but as far as the novels themselves being serialized, you can read basically any thread I posted in, about writing a novel series, and find some great comments on writing one - comments made TO ME, not by me. My novel series has seven very serialized novels, not one of them a stand alone. I have been through hell figuring out what to do with it, because it has been in development for over seven years and it's not something I am going to give up on. So, what I have had to do is make book one a stand alone novel, and then the rest of them can be as serialized as I want. What I did was, I turned book one into book TWO, and created a new book one - with the story I had for a prequel novel to the series. So, now the eight novel series, instead of seven, begins with a stand alone novel, and after IT, the rest of the books are serialized... It took me a while to come around and realize book one has to be a stand alone, if you are a new writer - just ask anyone "big" around here and they'll tell you just how stubborn I was. But, I took their advice and I'm working on the "prequel," which is now book 1 of the series.

But, I think if the book is part of a series (something a publisher would want to know ahead of time, anyway, I would think), as long as Book One is a stand alone, it can have any title you want it to. JMO. Hopefully Uncle Jim or maestro will chime in with some of their wisdom.

I have seen books (even first novels) with numbers: Book I, SAGA I, etc. It doesn't bother me... except that when you come across a title like that, you automatically think there's a follow-up: Where is Book II? So, if the book doesn't sell and it dies in the market... it will be very confusing and also can be detrimental to the author. Chances are, he/she will have to adopt another pen name to publish another book -- because it would be pretty embarrassing if you have one book out called BOOK I, but nothing else followed...

Lucas originally thought of the whole Star Wars saga as three trilogies. He's too old now (he said) to consider the third trilogy. But still, the fact that he called the first film Episode IV gave him immense pressure to do I, II, and III at the very least. He sort of painted himself in a corner. So 25 years later, he did it, but not without a lot of pressure, heartburns, criticism, comparison to the original, etc... and I am sure he would have LOVED to do something else besides Star Wars.

So it can be a two-edged sword.

Of course, if you have the books written already, the publisher might LOVE them so much that you sign a multi-book deal (as our dear friend Liam did). Then the issue is moot... you can call your books PArt I, Part V, or Book 26 if you want...


just my $0.00002.

There are two aspects. 1) The storyline: If you write a story that happens to be more than one book long, then it is what it is, and has to be interesting enough to make the reader want to see the rest. The classic trilogy doesn't have a "neat end", although the formula says each book has to stand alone.

Some writers look at each book as an episode of a sit-com, in that each episode is "That week's storyline". There is no "To be continued", but George, Kramer and Elaine will be back next week with a whole new episode.

However, you have some stories where there is a complex objective that isn't worked out until the last book. The first approach tends to be least risky because you have immediate gratification. To do the later, you need people who are willing to have delayed gratification. But when you can pull it off, you have a movie series in the making.
Aspect 2 is how you market it. Listing a story -1-2-3 seems like an approach aimed at connecting the dots for the reader, which doesn't seem memorable to me. But I'm no marketing guru, so I can't speak for anyone else. I think most fantasy authors tend to go for a more highbrow approach to their series.

My own personal opinion for unpublished authors (me being one) is to make the serialization with out the numbers. Instead, put in a common theme so that each one can stand alone, but fans will know the next "issue" has come out.

For example my first book is entitled G: The Settling of L -- the second book is entitled G: The Expansion of L. I have not started number three but the working titles is G: The Victory of L

All the titles are true to the theme of the individual book, but also to the series over all. Does that make sense?

Again, that's just how I decided to work it.

KP

Simple answer, unless you are writing for a monthly/weekly/quarterly publication, you do not serialize, per se. If you are writing "Books" the proper term would be either prequel or sequel. Each work should stand on its own, a complete work. Unless you are a known author and major bookstores decide to carry your best works, the chances are that if your book gets into the store it is alone to begin with. Therefore, it must stand alone and every version of the your "saga" has, also, the mandate to stand alone.

I knew when I received the contract for my first novel that the publisher had the license to do three books. So, I named my first novel Gauntlet: Dark Legacy "Paths of Evil". When it sold well enough to warrant another book, the second one was "Paths of Fear" and if they ask me to do the third one, it'll be called "Paths of Shadows". If they ask someone else to do it, they can use my precedent, or they can do whatever they want (within reason).

Course, licensed books are easier to show they're part of a series since the licensed product is in the title somewhere.

SeanDSchaffer said:

<snip ... Talking about George Lucas and Star Wars>

Yet he called his first Star Wars movie Episode IV. And he made it in such a way that it could be a standalone piece if it must, with just enough of the unfinished business at the end to justify a serial.

Click to expand...

Sean, I still have the original release Star Wars program (they were handed out at the theatre in NYC). Star Wars was not originally released with the subtitle "Episode IV: A New Hope". It didn't get the renaming until it was re-released in the months just prior to the release Of "The Empire Strikes Back". That re-titling was a shock when I first saw it.

He had actually intended all the movies to be one gigantic piece, but he realized it would have been much too long for a single film.

Click to expand...

He has stated that he had a story arc, and filed the piece that he could. Not sure if I believe him, as the word at the time was that the story was broken into 9 pieces, and that the only characters who would last through all nine were C32PO and R2D2.

The point I'm making is that when Lucas made the first Star Wars movie, he had serialized it, and at the same time he himself was not a huge name in the business. He was known, but not to the point that he is known today.

Click to expand...

And the proceeds from Star Wars allowed him to branch out successfully into other endeavours.
IMHO, he should have left well enough alone, and not made Episodes I - III.

If he could make it happen--in the same way and under much the same circumstances as Gene Roddenberry did with Star Trek--then IMO it is very feasible that anyone can do it, provided their original piece can work as a standalone should it not be the major success that the writer hopes it will be.

Just my opinion. I hope it helps.


[/QUOTE]

Duncan J Macdonald said:

Sean, I still have the original release Star Wars program (they were handed out at the theatre in NYC). Star Wars was not originally released with the subtitle "Episode IV: A New Hope". It didn't get the renaming until it was re-released in the months just prior to the release Of "The Empire Strikes Back". That re-titling was a shock when I first saw it.

Click to expand...

Wow! And I thought all the changes he's made in the original three movies for the DVD release was something he just started doing. I never realized he'd been revising the pictures all that time.

SeanDSchaffer said:

Wow! And I thought all the changes he's made in the original three movies for the DVD release was something he just started doing. I never realized he'd been revising the pictures all that time.

Click to expand...

That was just a title change. He waited to make changes to the movies themselves until Fox no longer had the rights to them. The first major change occured with the Special Edition released in 1997.

Oh, and
<obsessive Fanboy>
Han Shoots First!
</obsessive Fanboy>

fedorable1 said:

I don't get it.

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In the cantina on Tattooine, when Greedo and Han Solo are talking. Greedo has a gun on Han Solo, and he's telling Solo that he's going to take him back to Jabba. Guns go off, then Greedo falls face down on the table.

Who shoots first?

In the original, it was pretty clear that Han Solo shot Greedo first. Great bit of characterization, I thought. Showed him to be unscrupulous, but because he was beiong threatened, he doesn't appear a villain.

But...

In the retouched version, Greedo shoots first. And somehow manages to miss Han Solo despite having his gun about a foot away from Han Solo's chest. Lucas just wanted to make Han Solo more gooderer, and so removed all plausibility from the scene, and stripped out a layer of characterization that I liked.

Looking back on it, I should have realised how crap the new movies were going to be when I saw that scene. Oh well.

The titles of your books aren't really under your control anyway. Just hope that the marketing department doesn't do anything too horrible.

Simple answer, unless you are writing for a monthly/weekly/quarterly publication, you do not serialize, per se. If you are writing "Books" the proper term would be either prequel or sequel.

Click to expand...

Absolutely not true. Series of books are very popular (duh..otherwise there wouldn't be so many of them). They are books in a series...there is no way to know if any given Hardy Boys book, for instance is a sequel or prequel to which one. Trilogies and quartets are not add-ons, they are a series of novels which complete a larger whole. I hate "proper" even when it's correct.

Regarding the establishment of the series, there are lots of ways to ease into it. John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee books all contain a color in the title, making them recognizable among his other titles.
Sue Grafton's A is for Assassain or whatever is another clever way to create a very strong, formal series identity without having to stick the neck out on the first book.

I would say, offhand, that calling something Volume 1 in the absense of a contract to publish a subsequent volume or two is silly and could be embarrassing...except that they wouldn't let you.

On the other hand, you also have to be careful with numbers in titles when the numbers do not indicate a sequal or part of a series. In fact, my most recent book is titled Mark II not because it's the second book, but because the character undergoes a change to become his second self.

However, I am guilty of creating a serial novel set which is undergoing editing with the publisher as we speak. It's a lengthy serial and most of the books take place in a chronological setting, though it's possible to read most of them without reading the ones that went before, there are enough crossovers of events within a few that I recommend reading them in sequence. Blast me if you want, but it felt right when I wrote it. It still does largely to me.