One Hundred Fantasy Clichés That Really Need To Rest In Peace

#35: Milking Out the Story

  Imagine for a second that you have a best selling book series.  This book series, for the sake of the editorial's theme a fantasy genre series, is a worldwide hit.  Many children and adults love it to death.  Critics cannot get enough of your work and have even called them classics.  A loyal fan base of readers has formed, creating a huge community of artwork and fan fiction related to your work.  You could not be happier with the end result. 

  Then, you decide to continue writing the series, when previously you had chosen to end the series in order to prevent writing fatigue or seasonal rot.  There are a multitude of reasons for why you have chosen to do this.  The profit generated from the series is always at a stable amount, perhaps enough to buy the biggest mansion in your country.  Maybe you want to please fans who believe that certain characters deserve expansion or you love the universe you have created.  Whatever the reason, you decide to continue the series.  However, that love you once had from a multitude of people has started to fade away.  You do not know it, but because you resumed the series past its peak, whatever book it may have been, the entire storyline has been exhausted.  Like The Simpsons or Saturday Night Live, your work has become a former shell of itself all due to the decision to continuously work on it endlessly.

  So many hit book series, fantasy themed or not, have fallen into this trap.  The Warrior series after the second main arc started to become repetitious and full of literary clichés when the authors made the decision to never give the series an end.  Although now and then the books show signs of their former glory, such as is the case with the spin-off manga or Super Edition books, the series has been stated by many to have been exhausted.  Manga such as Dragon Ball, Fairy Tale, and Sailor Moon are still popular with their continuous publications, but are overshadowed when newer shorter series such as Madoka Magica or My Hero Academia are released.  Even comic books fall into this category when story lines start to get exhausted after about a decade of sticking to one established universe.  No form of literature is safe from the risk of milking it out past its prime.  Unless you plan on writing a four to five book series or create single novel stories, eventually your work could become this way too.

  We all love the idea of having our work published and beloved by many.  However, milking out the story is not the way to go.  Plan out a beginning and end to your books.  No matter what, do not extend the series when you feel it already has an appropriate ending.  When one series ends, there is always room for another one.  That is our mission as authors.  We write the most memorable stories we can think of and continue to write new ones that audiences can enjoy forever.