Quote

When you write the first book of a series, you do have to be careful what you put in because then you are stuck with it.

I did not know at first that it would be a series; I discovered after the first novel that I had more to say about it, so I did another. And another, and then the readers demanded yet more.

I think people enjoy a series. When you like a story, many readers want more of the same, which is dandy, if the author and the characters have more to say.

I think of every book as a single entity, and some have later gone on to become a series, often at the request of readers.

I think the further away you get from completing a book, the more responses you see to it from readers, the more your own tastes and opinions shift and the more you start to see things you could have written differently in the detail, or done differently on the broader scale of plot and character.

Occasionally, I hear grumbles about everything being a series or a trilogy, but apart from the question of them maybe selling more books, I think that there's a real problem in trying to introduce a new world or a new concept while also getting your reader to pay close attention to your characters and themes.

The books are like children in that having written one doesn't make writing the next one any easier, because it's a new set of problems and a new set of challenges with each one, and having dealt with one before means that you now know how to do it.

You want people to be eager for your book; the downside is when the people forget the series even exists.

Well, I don't know. It's long, it's longer than both of the other books put together, so it's more ambitious. I think I get under the skin of the people a lot more than in the other books.

I can understand the natural anxiety of readers when waiting for another installment of a favourite series, but I think it is much more important to get a book right than it is to have it appear on time.