Such a quirky part of querying a fantasy novel: will it be a series (and create value IP and interested reader-base) or be a stand-alone (no loose ends, the story is complete)? My own novel I’m querying stands nicely on its own, but I am working on a sequel of sorts – a novel set in the same alt-history world. It’s set a few hundred years later, so while some characters are connected back to the original human characters and the same gods are running around and mucking things up, it isn’t exactly a sequel. But it is a world I want to continue to play in, so to speak.
So these posts caught my eye:
Greer McAllister, over on WriterUnboxed, and Joanna Penn, over on The Creative Penn, contemplate what issues you should consider in deciding whether your story should be a stand-alone or a series (or even a serial – and Penn explains the difference; Zelazny’s Amber books, at least in my memory, are an excellent example of serials).
And the Mary Sue has a list 19 good stand-alone fantasy novels (a genre that does love a good series). Some of these I knew, some were new (including an Ursula K. LeGuin portal fantasy).
Ramblings 