Series or Standalones by Chris Longmuir
I’ve recently been thinking about what constitutes a series
in crime fiction. I started to think about this after describing my Dundee
books at the recent launch of Missing Believed Dead, and whether I was right in
labelling the three Dundee crime books as The
Dundee Crime Series.
You see, in my books the police are not the main characters,
they are secondary characters. The main characters are either victims, suspects
or perpetrators, and they are completely different in each book. So, because my
main characters are different in each book, does that make the books standalone
crime fiction rather than a series?
Julie, the main character in Night Watcher, disappears into
that space all characters go to when we, the writers, are finished with them.
Admittedly she appears in Dead Wood as a distant memory, but she’s not there in
the flesh.
Kara, my feisty single mother, who is my main character in Dead Wood, doesn’t quite disappear completely at the end of the book, because I’ve given her a walk-on part in Missing Believed Dead. However, I’m sure the Carnegie family from Missing Believed Dead, are going to vanish into the ether. But, if I decide to do another book in the series I’m going to have to give birth to some more, completely different characters, get under their skin, find out their stories, and become part of their life.
Kara, my feisty single mother, who is my main character in Dead Wood, doesn’t quite disappear completely at the end of the book, because I’ve given her a walk-on part in Missing Believed Dead. However, I’m sure the Carnegie family from Missing Believed Dead, are going to vanish into the ether. But, if I decide to do another book in the series I’m going to have to give birth to some more, completely different characters, get under their skin, find out their stories, and become part of their life.
On the other hand, the secondary police characters return in
every book, and my reading public seem to like DS Bill Murphy. So, because DS
Bill Murphy appears in every book, does that make the books a crime series? My
brain is aching thinking about this.
However, maybe I can have the best of both worlds and count
them as stand-alones, as well as being part of a series. It’s called having your
bread buttered on both sides.
Chris Longmuir
Comments
For what it's worth, I do think of your books as a series and I think it makes commercial sense to continue to describe them thus. Apart from anything else, Bill Murphy's personal issues make him an ongoing story in his own right. Then there's the need to distinguish them from your excursions into other genres (Salt-Splashed Cradle, etc.) But whatever label you choose, keep writing them.
As regards the actual TOPIC of the blog, sorry Chris, it's a GOOD question. I wrote a novella which keeps trying to mutate into a trilogy then a four parter but NOT a series more a sort of conglomoration of different perspectives from a variety of major/minor characters told in a variety of narrative 'voices'. Fortunately for the world these are all only extant in my head at present and long may it stay that way. I can't write my work and publish. Or should that be I can't publish and write my work or... ah well... one thing I'm sure of Chris is that characters will pop up when least expected (and probably least wanted, like good ideas!)