Wow... I can't believe I haven't been here in about 6 months. Life must have gotten in the way..... Anyway, I feel I've gotten myself into a difficult project. Where to start...? I might jump around here a bit. So, I came up with the idea for my first story (that I actually think will come to fruition) about a year ago. It quickly became something longer than a trilogy. Now I plan on writing a few 'seasons'-worth of about 50-75 page 'episodes'. The reason for this is that I have six main characters and several side characters, and I feel it would be easiest to flesh them out and develop them over the course of many standalone yet interconnected stories or 'episodes'. As for the 'seasons' part, I have down the overall plot of at least the first season and the arch of the entire series. I don't quite know how many seasons I'll have yet. And, after that, I have ideas for two sequel series. And a prequel that I hope to be made with another medium. Like I said: difficult project. I know I can do this. I just need to start at the beginning: episode one. I guess I'm not asking for anything other than your thoughts. And to let other people know about this attempt. Also, do you have any examples of successful works written in this fashion? Thank you for reading.
To be honest, I don't like the idea of a book/novel/trilogy/series written as a sequence of episodes that form a season that go on to form a continuing series. I'm reminded of Lost, a series that started with an intriguing idea but ended up just another soap-opera trying with increasing desperation to create one more mystery to keep us watching next week. There are certain aspects of Game of Thrones that seem to go the same way - my wife has even suggested that George Martin has a set of dice beside him when he writes, and he rolls them to see who he's going to kill off this episode! However, Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation trilogy started life as a series of self-contained novellas, all set in the same universe, with a sequential timeline. The big difference, I suppose, is that the Foundation trilogy novellas all had a beginning, middle and end, whereas each Lost episode was a means of advancing towards some fabled logical conclusion.
