Rachel Gibson Quotes

Most fiction series are written so that the reader can come in at any point and not feel lost, but if you can start at the beginning, why not?

Some books are serials, not to be mistaken for anything else. 'The Two Towers,' for example, ought never to be read in isolation.

In ordinary detective novels you never see the consequences of what happens in a story in the next book. That you do in mine.

Not all series books are sagas. Some are shaped more like beads on a string, separate episodes held together by a set of characters, who may or may not grow and change as the series continues.

People often ask if my books should be read in any particular order, but they're all standalone novels, so picking up any one of them would be fine.

If you'll think about various series you've read, can you think of any instance in which, say, the tenth volume of the series is notably better than the first nine? I can't.

I am writing a sequel to The Touch because I want to further explore the Chinese question that I have raised. There will be more about that in a sequel.

I think each book sort of finds its own theme as it goes on. 'Warded Man' was fear. 'Desert Spear' was exploration of the other. 'Daylight War' was relationships. Some of this is intentional, and some of it evolves naturally. The series as a whole is obviously something I have given a lot of thought to, but each book is its own animal as well.

There have been some brilliant and very successful standalone books that work in themselves and also seem to refresh a series. Anyone who writes a series lives in fear of it becoming stale, so you do whatever you can to keep it fresh - although it does feel a bit nerve-racking to write outside of your comfort zone.

The way that Dickens structured his books has a form that we most readily recognize now from, say, the great T.V. series, like 'The Wire' or 'The Sopranos.' There's one central plot line, but then from that spin off all kinds of subplots.

When I started 'City of Bones,' I knew exactly what was going to happen in 'City of Glass.' When I first started the six-book series, I thought of it as a three-book series.

I would normally never set out to write a trilogy.

The most difficult book I wrote was the fourth in a series of linked children's books. It was like pulling teeth because the publisher wanted exactly the same but completely different. I'd much rather just do something completely different, even if there's a risk of it going wrong.

Writers are frequently asked why they wrote their first book. A more interesting answer might come from asking them why they wrote their second one.

If I were to continue on with 'The Host,' which is a possibility, there are characters and stories that could continue... If I went ahead with that, it would be two more... Next would be 'The Soul,' and then 'The Seeker.'

On any serialized show, you're going to have through-lines that take you through the season, and you're going to have individual arcs that resolve themselves in shorter order.

The thing is, 'Discworld' had been going on for a very long time, and I've written children's books as well. Usually when people have a really big series they franchise it, which I thought is a bit of a no-no, so I thought what I'd do is I'd franchise it to myself.

I don't have any specific plans to return to the 'Age of the Five.' If I do, it won't be a sequel.

I've always found the second book in a series is the hardest to write.

I wasn't really conscious about 'The 39 Clues' movie when I wrote 'The Black Circle.'

'Gossip Girl' came out in rapid succession over two years, so the endings always had to be suspenseful so that you couldn't wait for the next one.

The first book that they gave me was Jeannie, a young teenager. I went on with her maybe ten books.

I've written some standalone novels, but a book series allows fans in. There's much more intense involvement.

When I first starting conceiving series like 'Courtney,' 'Polly,' 'How Loathsome,' etc., I was shooting for closed story-arcs but open-ended concepts. Then I started realizing I was committing myself to potentially endless series.

I very much use Bill Willingham's approach on 'Fables,' which is that rather than having an end point to a series, I have an end point for the various story lines.