When you're playing a character in a book, there's already a lot of pressure because all of the millions of people who have read the series have been able to envision and become very attached to the characters.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There is always pressure playing a real living person and even pressure developing a character from scratch.
Characters develop as the book progresses, but any that start to bore me end up in the wastepaper basket. In real life, we may have to put up with tedious people, but not in novels.
I know when I go and see a writer, the first thing I think to myself is, 'Are they the character in the book?' You just can't help it; it's the way people are.
A lot of times with novels, you can get a really deep, engaging story, but there's not a lot happening, frankly. Those books tend to be super-literary and dense, and they require a lot of commitment, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but if you want fast-moving action and gore and plot and excitement, you can get shorted on that.
Point of view gets me. If I can feel like a character rather than a reader, I'll read that book.
The characters are always the focal point of a book for me, whether I'm writing or reading. I may enjoy a book that has an intriguing mystery or a good plot, but to become one of my real favorites, it has to have great characters.
I think a lot of people want me to be like the characters in the books: they want that kind of congruence.
We writers of series fiction tend to idealize ourselves in our characters, giving them attributes we wish we possessed and ever more interesting lives.
The only pressure I feel is to write good books. And to not replicate the previous book. Whether you have a thousand readers or a million readers it doesn't change the pressure. I never feel tempted to give the reader what I think the reader wants.
You want people to be eager for your book; the downside is when the people forget the series even exists.