A story in pause

I wrote last week about choosing not to continue reading the other books in a series, even after I had read and loved one. I appreciate those of you who commented here and elsewhere, both showing understanding of my reasoning and offering gentle encouragement to rethink that choice at some time. I truly love that sort of thoughtful discussion about books, so thank you for offering it.

Thank you also because your comments made me realize that I’m not quite done thinking about this topic, about what it’s like to choose to fully close the book on a story that progresses.

I definitely understand the readerly impulse to loving something and wanting more of it. That short story could be a novel! That novel could be a series! That series could be longer! We are living in a culture that currently asks for prequels to go with sequels, that wants deleted scenes as bonus content, that follows cinematic universes unfolding across a variety of media. Fanfic has become such a part of the literary world that not only does my spellcheck recognize the word, but publishers use AO3 tags as part of their marketing campaigns.