I have written three Rights of Passage novels: Borderland (2002), Outland (2003) and Shadowland (2005). It is now 2012 and I haven’t completed the quintet.
There are many reasons for series fiction to remain incomplete.
Sometimes the author has an open ended series (e.g. Discworld or The Culture) in which case it’s not so much incomplete as each book can stand alone. This is not true of the Rights of Passage series although ironically it is true of the Hex/Void trilogy which has since been bound up as a single volume. Right of Passage was my first and only attempt at writing a series with cliff-hangers. Perhaps this is why its sales were disappointing? Either way I haven’t embarked on another series since.
Perhaps the author has other projects on the go. George R R Martin and his fan base fell out with each other over the fans demands for more Ice and Fire novels and their criticism of Martin for working on anything else. On the one hand I completely appreciate (and share) their frustration, on the other hand writing cannot be produced on command.
Perhaps the author can’t afford to write it. You need funding to write professionally. Each of my Rights of Passage novels was funded via an advance on royalties from the publishing company and they can’t afford to fund future books if the sales of the first three don’t merit it. These are lean times for publishing and unfortunately the audience isn’t always there for every book. But without someone paying me to do it, I cannot afford to write. I put aside time for my writing and rely on other work for a regular income stream. This means that for me to invest time in writing I need to know the work is viable: in that there is an audience and a market for it. This is the same, but writ large for publishers.
Perhaps the author doesn’t know how to finish the books. After a gap of seven years this is entirely a possibility for me but it’s not been tested. I had a plan for how to finish these books and I remember a lot of it and I even have notes towards them. But with each year that passes it becomes less likely that I will complete the series if only because my writing evolves and I might be danger of pastiching my own style in returning to an earlier one. These are the risks of series fiction and why I now concentrate on novels which don’t depend on sequels.
The quintet that isn’t consists of three published titles: Borderland, Shadowland and Outland. Two books remain unwritten: Heartland and Lands End.
Is indie publishing the way to get these books into reality?
But without someone paying me to do it, I cannot afford to write. I put aside time for my writing and rely on other work for a regular income stream. This means that for me to invest time in writing I need to know the work is viable
I wonder then, whether, in a perverse way the fact that I am conventionally unpublished gives me a luxury that you don’t have. Because I have only self-published one book which is still at the early stages of building a following I still have the advantage of being able to write what I want in the time that I can snatch between the rest of my life. This is not to say that you’re aren’t writing what you like, but it sounds as if you might be consciously not writing what you don’t think will sell.
Maybe luxury is the wrong term – freedom maybe? The freedom of the unpublished writer…
Comment by Thomas — September 10, 2012 @ 9:13 pm
I would totally pay for more RoP books via a kickstarter/indiegogo kind of mechanism.
But might it be worth testing that out first with an unpublished book(s) that you’ve already written, eg. L*****e W*****s? (Which I would also totally pay for.)
Comment by Mo — September 10, 2012 @ 11:08 pm
I’d totally pay up front for these two books. Especially if there was a bonus, like being signed or something.
Comment by Nicola — September 11, 2012 @ 4:27 am
I would totally pay for them!
I have the first three books sitting on my shelf since their publication dates and I was always wondering if there was more to come. So yeah, if there is more, I’d pay for it!
Nickey
Comment by DarlingNickey — September 11, 2012 @ 10:41 am