TMST: Series or Stand Alone Books?

Last week I found a fun weekly discussion series called Tell Me Something Tuesday hosted by Rainy Day Ramblings, and I thought it tied in so well with what I wanted to do for my Top Ten Tuesday that I absolutely had to do it this week. Of course, I'm laughing that the two weekly lists/posts that I want to do are both on Tuesdays...but we'll see how that works out.

This week's question: Do you prefer series or stand alone?

When I first saw this question, I paused - which did I like better? I thought it was maybe stand alone books, but I thought about how much I loved series such as Harry Potter, The Infernal Devices, and many others and hesitated.

When I really think about it though, I definitely prefer stand alone novels rather than getting involved in a series. I often find that with a series, especially in the case of a trilogy, there is a book that is essentially a filler, which, although useful to push the plot forward, isn't really a great read on its own. With a single novel, although there may be filler sections, they are shorter than a full book and therefore the read is overall more enjoyable. The one downside is that the plots and universes are rarely as fully developed and intricate (of course there are always exceptions to some degree, such as The Count of Monte Cristo).

I think it really depends on the genre, and subject matter though. A fantasy series such as A Song of Ice and Fire or Harry Potter wouldn't be anywhere near as effective if they were a single book. The character development and world building would be extremely different as we don't get to see large ranges of time or content. Each year in Harry Potter shows a different side and evolution of each character. Where character-driven books are concerned, a full series rarely works. Imagine The Perks of Being a Wallflower as a trilogy, or a sequel to Wuthering Heights - it just wouldn't work. It would be too much.



Also, the time commitment to a series is much tougher. If you picked up the first novel soon after publication, you likely have to wait until the next installment comes out, and you might even have to re-read that first novel to refresh yourself on the content before reading the second one. Even if you pick them up after all of the books have come out, it still feels (to me, anyway) like you are chaining yourself in to a series that you might not want to commit to. I mean, if the first one is terrible, no, I am not going to continue. But, if it's decent, even if they start to slowly go downhill, well, I might keep reading in order to figure out what happens (or a nice long trip to Wikipedia might be in order).

So, although I like picking up a great series, usually a fantasy series, I definitely prefer the character-driven, single-dose commitment to a book. Yes, sometimes it makes me sad that a story and characters I love have ended so early, but there is usually a better sense of finality to these stories, and things are wrapped up better than often happens in series.

I could talk about this forever, so I will just end with this: I do love both, and I think each format is really important for the kind of story an author is trying to tell. I feel as though I am more often disappointed by the resolution of a series, or changes to characters, than I am in a stand alone novel (as evidenced by my earlier post today). So for me, it would have to be stand alones.