some can stand alone, but not all

I haven’t been writing much in the past few weeks because of recent developments, but I’ve written a paragraph here and there in my current story, enough to start to realize that that a problem I’ve been ducking for a while now has to be solved.

It is the question that always comes up when you write serial fiction. How much do you rely on your readers having read what has come before?

I remember there was some comment when the second Lord of the Rings movie came out, that it started cold — with no prologue, no quick summary of part one.

In that situation, of course, it was a pretty good bet that the audience had seen the first one, and quite possibly read the books as well.

On the other hand, I remember Joss Whedon saying that in television your first six episodes are each the pilot. You can’t rely on people starting at the beginning (and in fact you really want the audience to grow as you go along, meaning you have to do your best to help them come along with you).

In my case, I try not to count on readers being familiar with what’s come before. The Jan Sleet Mysteries book follows A Sane Woman and U-town, but it’s designed to stand alone. The same with Stevie One.

The two stories I’m writing now, though (tentatively called “One Night at the Quarter” and “It Was A Dark and Stormy Night“) are kind of working out to be two halves of one story. They’re about parents, of course — one about a father and one about a mother — and those two things do kind of go together (even though the father and mother don’t meet in the stories).

So, I’m saying they’re Part One and Part Two of the same story. The first part is done, and it’s around 35,000 words, so if the second part is about the same length, then it will be a novel, more or less.

This is not absolute — I think “It Was a Dark and Stormy Night” can be read alone — but readers would have to work a little harder in terms of who the characters are and how they relate to each other.

Heck, the first comic book I ever read was the second half of a two-part story, and I managed to find my way through.

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