I saw on a Hollywood gossip site that Sherri Shepherd is going to play Lula in the Stephanie Plum movies. I like her. I think she’s perfect to play Lula. I saw her on a sitcom years and years ago and thought she’d be a great match for that character. Now I just need them to listen about casting The Rock, Dwayne Johnson, to play Ranger. Mmmmm, Ranger.
Speaking of the Stephanie Plum series, I stopped buying the books at book 11. I still read them but I don’t pay for them anymore, I get them at the library. Why, you say? Well, there are a few reasons, let me tell you them.
- Character growth. Stephanie never gets even a little better at her job. Ever.
- Unresolved romantic conflict. Stephanie will never choose between Ranger & Morelli. Ever.
- Writing. I don’t know who’s writing these anymore but I don’t think its Janet Evanovich.
I’ve heard similar complaints from others about this series, but some people love them just the way they are, my mother for one, and don’t want the books to change. But the lack of change, makes the Plum books feel stagnant and rehashed to me.
So that brings me to the topic du jour. Change. When you love a series, do you want change as the series progresses or do you like the characters to stay exactly the same? If you like change, then how much change do you like? A little or a lot? What about the characters or the original story is ok to change and what is taboo?
These are tough questions for me to answer and I’m sure for the author of a long running series, even tougher.
What if JE changed the Stephanie Plum series? What if she made Stephanie The Best Bounty Hunter In All The Land, and Grandma Mazur died and became a poltergeist that haunts Stiva’s funeral home but only Stephanie can see her because she accidentally became a necromancer and Rex is now a zombie hamster? Ranger and Morelli are still around but after being ignored by The Best Bounty Hunter In All The Land, they discovered their love/hate relationship was just a cover for their true feelings for each other and have moved in together in Morelli’s house. Morelli still works but because Stephanie is TBBHIATL, Ranger retired and spends his days Tole painting thimbles. Too much? Yeah, you’re probably right. Fans would be angry. Mel Gibson angry.
Here’s an example of change in a series that appears to have gone horribly wrong. I say appears, because I haven’t read the book, I’m just reading the reviews at Amazon.
Undead and Unfinished by MaryJanice Davidson. I stopped reading these after the 5th book in the series, when the books went to hardcover. According to the reviewers, it seems like there’s a whole mess of change and nobody’s happy about it. Think angry pitchfork and torch bearing villagers storming the castle unhappy. So maybe change didn’t work out very well for Betsy readers. From what I glean from the reviews, MJD took her original paranormal lite, chick-lit world and made it darker. Too much change? Seems like a lot of readers think so.
The good news is, there’s a happy middle ground between good change, bad change and no change (can there be a middle when there are three choices? I’m bad at math) and some authors get it just right.
There are a couple of series that work for me that do indeed include change and maybe that’s why I’m still reading and buying the books. One is the J D Robb In Death series. Let’s go through our checklist.
- Character growth. Both Eve and Roarke have grown since book one, individually and as a couple.
- Unresolved romantic conflict. Nope. Eve and Roarke got married after book 2.
- Writing. I never hear any other voice but J D Robb’s when I read these books.
So I guess for me, the answer is, I like the middle of the road change. Go ahead and let your characters grow, get rid of that love triangle, stay true to the basic tenets of your original story and for heaven’s sake, don’t hire a ghost writer and don’t jump the shark with a zombie hamster.
