Trying to Predict and Shape Reader Expectations

[hrj]

K.J. Charles has a really useful blog today about how to manage character introductions and call-backs in a "linked main characters" series of the type that is quite popular in romance these days. Just how do you feed the desire of continuing readers to recognize side characters who were main characters in a previous book without doing it in a clumsy and intrusive way? How do you make sure your call-backs and foreshadowing don't distract too much from the central characters of the current book.

I've encountered this aspect of reader expectation from the opposite side: what do you do when your readers enter the book with a "serial linked main characters" reading protocol, but that's not what your books are doing?

I was genuinely bewildered the first time I encountered a reader opinion that Margerit and Barbara should have "known their place" and stayed out of the spotlight in The Mystic Marriage. Like...I had somehow accidentally given them 50% of the point of view time when they should have known they were only minor side characters in the book. I suppose if you expect all books series to follow the rules of this particular mode of linked romance series, then my approach was a major error. Except that's not what I was doing.

The Alpennia series was never intended to be a set of independent romance novels in a loosely linked setting (which is a perfectly wonderful concept, and in fact I have an idea for doing a series like that at some point). From the very start (or at least, from the point when I realized it was going to be a series), it was planned as an accumulation of an ensemble cast, with each character being significant to the story, though perhaps moving in and out of prominence in different books. But how could I have signaled that more clearly to set up reader expectations?

Honestly, I'm not sure I could have. Just as all my efforts to warn people that Mother of Souls wasn't a capital-R Romance novel were in vain. And I'll predict that there will be readers who come out of Floodtide feeling betrayed that it, too, wasn't a romance novel. And no doubt readers who will greatly enjoy the more action-oriented thriller aspects of Mistress of Shadows will probably tell you that "Heather has finally hit her stride and figured out how to pace a book properly."

I like to think I'm doing something more interesting than the things those readers wanted me to have done. And I hope that when the series is complete, even they will look back and conclude that--whether or not it was to their taste--the result wasn't a mistake or poor technique on my part.

Comments

[life_of_glamour]

I guess that’s the thing about releasing something into the wild - people will bring their own interpretations and not everyone is as perceptive as you’d like or hope. I, for the record, could tell that what you were building was an ensemble cast. But yeah, everyone’s bringing their own experience and expectations to the table, which can probably be mystifying at times.

[hrj]

*sigh* I know. I just get frustrated when people say my cat is a bad dog.

[sylvaine]

Frankly, based on my experiences on AO3 and FFnet, no matter what you do, someone will misunderstand it or see their own assumptions rather than what's there. Which isn't to say learning how to navigate that isn't worthwhile, just that it pays not to worry too much about single complaints, I think!

[hrj]

It isn't usually single complaints, but there are some fascinating clustered complaints. They're about all manner of random thing -- like the people who wish I'd "stop pushing religion so much."

[alithea]

Huh. I always assumed you were doing the ensemble thing, but then I'm not a genre romance reader so I guess I didn't come into the series with expectations.

I've only encountered this sort of response from romance readers though - I have an online acquaintance who wrote an urban fantasy series, the first book of which was pitched as a romance by her publishers and she got loads of hate mail when the second book was published because she did something romance readers considered a cardinal sin! And the publisher then only published two or three of the planned series :(

Mind you, I guess there are a whole pile of SF&F fans who also get very incensed about authors doing stuff they don't approve of...

Alpennia and romance

[shaunacarrick]

I, for one, totally enjoy the fact that the romance part of the books is not the central focus every single time! I am NOT a romance type, but much more into the historical and inter-personal story-telling aspects of your books. I sincerely hope that you can, at some point, have enough success to be able to write full time!

You tell GREAT stories, and I am anxiously awaiting the next one!

I got 'Lace and Blade 4' so I could read the Alpennia story there, and it was Wonderful! I was able to buy it for my reader, finally - given my total lack of storage space, e-versions are much more likely for me these days. Will Floodtide be available through an e-reader format at some point?

Thanks again for sharing your words and worlds with us!