Of serials and stories with an ending
When I was a kid, I watched a lot of early morning/afternoon cartoons along with the large Saturday block of cartoons. In the 70s and early 80s there were a lot of cartoons on rotation and many were episodic where the characters never changed from episode-to-episode that could run in syndication in any order. If you think about G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero or He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and you can get the idea. Even U.S. television had adopted this format, not long dramas, but shows like the A-Team or Knight Rider. My first introduction to a long serial that had a self-contained story arc came from an unlikely place. In that era, the first few (poorly adapted) Americanized Japanese anime emerged starting with Speed Racer and Battle of the Planets (AKA Science Ninja Team Gatchaman). Beyond the unique art style, it didn’t appeal to me until Spacebattleship Yamato (retitled Star Blazers in the U.S.) came along. In this single television season, multiple characters changed over the story (made large sacrifices, fell in love, died, matured). At the end of that first season was the end of a truly complete story arc. I watched that show religiously. I was hooked and shows like it that followed, like Super Dimension Fortress Macross Saga (Robotech in the U.S.). I had been introduced into the concept of the long serial and story arc and I wanted more.
Recently I discovered they had remade the original Space Battleship Yamato anime series, preserving a lot of the original concepts while still updating the material for today’s standards. The animation and graphics are sharp, the cast has more women, the character motivations are clear while the story arc remains solid, the costumes and designs remain the same, and even the original music remains a massive contribution to the story’s tone. I watched this version with my daughters and they were as captivated as I had been as a kid.
American television shows have come a long way since that early four channel television era, and the storytelling has come along with it. My children binge a season of a cartoon serial like She-Ra and the Princesses of Power to see what happens. How does it all end? How do the characters grow?
I love long serials that make promises along the way and deliver on those promises. Shows and books that fail to deliver on those promises at the end are heavily panned. Stories that make few promises at the beginning, build to something promised, but then deliver something that wasn’t promised at all results in a mixed bag where some viewers see it as a twist or inevitable ending and others feel it was a wasted opportunity.
For me, the journey matters as much as the destination. It’s fun to read pulpy episodic novels where the protagonist doesn’t change (ex. James Bond, particularly in the post-Fleming era), but I want to take a journey with many smaller stories that lead us along a bigger story, both in scope and character. In the visual medium, they take this to new heights with streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.
Where am I going with this? I’m developing a series that is a somewhat longer serial. I want to write a story that conveys my love for the long story arc.
What are your favorite long serial stories? What about novels? Which genre does this best for you?
Book News: I’m wrapping up a complete draft of my last series novel, Rise of Avalon. I’ll take a momentary break to do some other writing related work and then I’ll go back to do another revision. The novel will be ready for beta readers by the end of summer if all goes well.
My reading has slowed this last month, though I’ve bounced around in the science fiction and fantasy genres, mostly. In the past I’ve struggled with reading Brandon Sanderson, so I went to his seminal work, the Mistborn trilogy, starting with The Final Empire. Sanderson has an engaging style with simple prose, and action mixed with world building. The Final Empire is not without its flaws (a single female character being one), but overall I enjoyed the heist-like story. I say heist-like, because Sanderson points out that this is a heist novel, and it reads very much like a heist novel, but without giving away spoilers, there’s a bait-and-switch, albeit well telegraphed in advance. It drew me into the fantasy realm while feeling there was a large promise of a heist coming off a la Ocean’s Eleven. I’m still in for the story and eager for the next in the series,
What are you reading?