A recent interesting post from Bill Selnes at Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan has got me thinking about how series end. Sometimes, sadly, it’s because of the author’s passing. Other times, the author makes the choice to end a series. After all, once the characters have told their stories, there’s not a lot more to say. If the series continues beyond that point, it loses quality. I think we’ve all read series that went on too long.

Some series go on longer than the author had originally planned. For instance, Louise Penny’s Three Pines series featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache was originally intended as a ten-book series, slated to end with The Long Way Home. But things didn’t work out that way, and the series is now nearly twice that long, and still has deeply devoted fans. There are plenty of other series that are similar (e.g. Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories).

In general, though, the author (or the publisher) decides that the characters’ stories have been told. In some cases, the stories don’t take long to tell. For example, Anthony Bidulka’s series featuring Saskatchewan PI Merry Bell includes only three novels: Livingsky, From Sweetgrass Bridge, and Home Fires Burn. In those novels, we learn who she is, where she’s from, the challenges she’s faced, and the cases she investigates. Her story is told in just those three novels.

There’s a similar pattern in Nelson Brunanski’s John ‘Bart’ Bartowski series, which includes four novels. In Crooked Lake, the first novel, we learn about Bart’s background and home life; he’s a happily married owner of a Saskatchewan fishing lodge. As the series goes on, Bart gets involved in murder and arson cases, and as he does, we learn about life in small-town Saskatchewan. His story is told after four novels, and there’s logic in that. Without major changes in Bart’s circumstances, it might be very difficult to continue a series like that that takes place in a small community.

Other series are longer. Vicki Delany’s Constable Molly Smith series, to take one example, consists of eight books. Smith lives and works in Trafalgar, British Columbia, mostly under the supervision of her boss, John Winters, and as the series goes on, we follow her development as a police detective, the network of relationships in the town and in her life, and several story arcs. When those stories were finished, the series ended. It’s worth nothing that Delany is quite prolific, with several other series to her name. That said, though, there’s a solid argument that the series ended when the characters finished telling the stories.

There’s also Ausma Zehamat Khan’s six-book series featuring Rachel Getty and Esa Khattak of the Canadian government’s Community Policing Service (CPS). That particular branch of the government’s police work is focused on hate crimes and bigotry, so the two are called in when a hate-based murder is committed. Along with the crimes and mysteries being investigated, we also learn Getty’s and Khattak’s backstories, and we see how those play out as story arcs throughout the series. When those stories have been told, the series ends.

There are plenty of other examples of series that last for a certain time and then end when the characters’ stories have been told. This has a lot of advantages. For the author, it means flexibility to go on to another series, another sort of writing, or something else. For the reader, it means the quality of the stories doesn’t wane over time.

This is a lot easier to say than to do, of course. For one thing, readers may be eager for a series to go on even after the author or publisher has decided that it’s had its day. That’s what happened to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. For another, an author may be a best-seller, whose series is snapped up immediately. Even if the author thinks it’s time for a series to end, the publisher may think differently. Finally, everyone has a different idea of how long a given series should go on. Some readers may be eager for a series to continue, while others think it’s past its sell-by date.

Still, for authors, it’s worth thinking about how long a series will continue and making a (possibly difficult) decision to end that series when the characters have told their stories. Thanks very much, Bill, for the inspiration. Folks, do treat yourself to a visit to Bill’s blog. Excellent reviews, commentary, and exchanges with authors await you there.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Mein Herr.