Slightly Off Topic: Three Deadly Sins

Note: For the purposes of this posting, I’m using “series” to mean a group of books that tell the same story. For examples, you could think of The Lord of the Rings, the Twilight novels, or the Mortal Instruments. When using the word “series” in this post, I do not include the serial, which is a group of books that tell different stories about the same characters, or the same world. For example, the Stephenie Plum books.

Note 2: I use the example of a trilogy, but I think the same principles could be applied to a longer series.

I’ve always read a lot, but since I’ve been reviewing books in earnest, I find notice different things about books than I noticed before. I start to see patterns that I didn’t see. One of them is what I like to call book “birth order.” The first, middle, and youngest children of a series have things in common with others of their place in the family. Are you still with me? Good.

Today I’m just going to talk a little about some flaws that I notice frequently in first, middle and final books of a series. I’m calling them the deadly sins, because they have a way of killing my excitement about a series, and also because it sounds catchier that way. I am not an author, I don’t really understand how hard it is to be an author, and I don’t mean to offend anyone, I am just explaining my personal experience as a reader. With that disclaimer, let’s get started.

The Deadly Sin of first books: Sloth. Maybe it's just me, but lately I've read a lot of novels that feel like extended exposition. Wake, The Summoning, and I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have to Kill You. They're all first novels in a series, they all have great concepts, but they all feel slightly lacking in the plot department. I enjoy them, but they just don't have quite the same oomph as, say, The Hunger Games, City of Bones, or The Lightning Thief. I hope I'm making sense. It feels like the authors in the first group of novels didn't allot enough action to the first novel, using it instead to build characters and set up worlds. The books are entertaining, and if you read my reviews you'll realize I liked them. They just failed to grip me in the same way that the second group did by setting up a strong external conflict right away.

The Deadly Sin of second books: Tedium. The middle book’s curse is that middles just aren’t as much fun as beginnings and endings. Take Tolkien’s The Two Towers as an example. The conflict is all set up, the characters are all on their way. But it’s not time for the big battles and final triumphs yet. Nope, everyone just travels everywhere. Frodo’s on his way to Mount Doom, Aragorn’s on his way to Gondor... yawn. Nothing really happens! If you’ve only seen the movies, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Are you kidding? Tons of stuff happens in TT! Helm’s Deep, the fall of Saruman, and those awesome tree guys!” I agree, the movie of the Two Towers is fantastic! Yet somehow, even though all those events happen in the book, they manage to be kind of boring.

I’m going to take a moment to hire myself some protection from all the LOTR fans who want to tear me to shreds right now. I like the series, really I do, I just don’t think it is completely lacking in flaws.

The Deadly Sin of last books: Self-Indulgence. I’ve never written a book, much less a series, but I can just imagine how bittersweet it must feel to get your characters to the end of the road. The hard part is over, the stage is set. Now it’s just time for them to triumph! Maybe it’s even a little hard to let go. It’s tempting to keep the story going, fill in those blanks, and sneak in the information that you just couldn’t find a place for in the previous books under the guise of “Epilogue.” In my opinion, that urge should be resisted.

For an example, I’m going to use Breaking Dawn from the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I loved this book, I loved that I didn’t see the plot twists coming, and I was happy with the ending. But I had one complaint. There were just way too many scenes and sidelines that had little or nothing to do with the actual plot of the book. I don’t mind the occasional sidebar, but Breaking Dawn crossed over the line into rambling. There was enough extra wordage to write a companion book, and I would have enjoyed the story a little more if it were sharpened up a little.

So that's it for me. What do you think? Do you agree with me? Maybe you think I’m crazy. Either way, I want to hear from you. Let the discussion begin.