#book place rambles

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Me about to write: *opens document*

My brain two seconds later:

#book place rambles

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AHHH THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR 900 FOLLOWERS!!!

#book place rambles #900 followers #thank you all so so so much

[chimaerakitten]

I’ve been thinking today about off ramps in long running stories, especially book series.

By that I mean like, places where a person could stop reading and have a satisfying ending even if they’re not yet at the actual ending. (Someone tell me if there’s an established Tvtropes name for this I’m missing.)

Now, a lot of book series will have an off ramp at the end of book 1, because many first books are written without promise of a sequel. Like sure, there might be a sequel hook, but the actual second book is still up to publisher whims in most cases. So you can read All Systems Red or The Thief or A Madness of Angels and have a perfectly satisfying ambiguous-end sci-fi story or middle grade fantasy romp or inverted murder mystery revenge quest without ever picking up book 2. This is definitely an off ramp but it’s not necessarily the interesting or revealing kind because again. Whims of the publisher.

There’s also stories that have an off ramp after every installment. Leverage is famous for this—they had a philosophy of having every season be a satisfying ending, which says a lot both about the writers and about the story they were trying to tell.

But I think the most interesting ramps are the ones where by design or by circumstance, there’s a single off-ramp somewhere in the middle. One spot where unless someone tells you there’s more, you’d never be unsatisfied with leaving halfway through.

Sometimes these will be signaled in some way, where there’s a big timeskip after the off-ramp, or the series changes names or has a spin-off, or the POV changes, or after book 3 the author publishes a short story collection before hopping back in to novels, or the series suddenly jumps from being only novellas to a chunky 120k novel. (The Raksura books, Percy Jackson/HoE, Matthew Swift/Magicals Anonymous, and Murderbot all do one or more of these)

But sometimes off ramps aren’t visible in series order or marketing. Sometimes they’re organic to where a story happens to leave off at the end of an installment.

The queen’s thief has one of these after King Of Attolia. I know this was a satisfying ending because for seven years I thought it was the end. My local library didn’t have A Conspiracy of Kings, so I thought it was a trilogy. And you really can leave it there! KoA ends with Gen back in his element and recognized as king, the main internal threat to Irene neutralized, and peace on the peninsula. The Mede aren’t yet the immediate threat they are in the back half of the series, since up through KoA they’re mainly represented by the magus’s vague warnings and Nahuseresh, whom Irene thinks circles around. There’s no real reason to assume the Mede are a threat within the scope of the series. Now I absolutely prefer getting the whole story, but KoA is a damn solid off-ramp for anyone who feels like exiting there.

And that’s one kind of off ramp where the end you get is pretty similar in tone (mostly happy) to the one you get if you go on to the rest of the series. I’ve also read books where you can off ramp successfully right at the lowest point in the series and get a tragedy out of a series that ultimately ends happy, or leave at a high point and get a happier end than the main one, or exit at an ambiguous point and continue on with ambiguity. The Giver sequels make it pretty clear what happened to Jonas and Gabe at the end of the book. but you don’t have to read them or have that question answered if you want to.

I don’t have a really solid conclusion to draw here except that I think the positioning of off ramps says a lot about authors and stories, and choosing whether or not to take an off ramp says a lot about readers.

#I know multiple people who refuse to recognize the giver sequels #which has always been odd to me because I quite liked them and never thought Jonas died in the first place #meta #the queen’s thief #tqt #Murderbot #the kitten rambles #murderbot’s off ramp is after exit strategy if that wasn’t clear #Raksura’s is after siren depths #this post partially brought to you by #the realization that one can stop reading Temeraire at the end of book four #and get a tragedy where the horrors of empire cannot be stopped #and will crush anyone trying to change things

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🚨ATTENTION🚨

I have an announcement: I’ve officially decided to start writing full fics on Wattpad!! The only thing is that I want to start off by just writing one and idk which to start with

Thank you so much for your help!!!

#book place rambles

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I know I’m a day late, but I just wanted to say that I’m thankful for each and every one of my mutuals. You’ve all helped me in one way or another- some more than you’ll ever know- and I could never be more grateful to be able to call you my moots- even if my low activity on tumblr stops me from talking with you all the time

@ip747 @its-hell @foggy-isnt-here @panic-in-the-multiverse @ihatemyselfmorethanmydepression @vivi-taylorsversion @daughterofthequeen @bringinsexybackk69 @popfishjr @betzabobababi @night3owl @roseblue373 @azurethevampire @kiyomi-uchiha777 @i-writes-things @toecrust69 @angelic-simp @withbeautyandrage @mayfieldss @mictodii

#book place rambles #love my moots #mutuals #thanksgiving

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THIS ISNT A DRILL YALL- NEW ALBUM

#book place rambles #taylor swift #grammys

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I just realized that I missed my two year anniversary on tumblr (it was on the 4th). I love you all and thank you so so much to everyone that has supported me on my journey 🫶🫶🫶

#book place rambles

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Today is November 5th and I am not okay

#destiel #supernatural #spn #nov 5th #book place rambles

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I just went down a rabbit hole of reading my earliest written fics and though they were shit, I couldn’t help but smile. I didn’t realize how much I missed writing for me. Of course I am always more than happy to take and write requests- absolutely love doing it. But I guess I miss the time when it was just me, this blog, and whatever it was that I wanted to write for the day. I feel like I’m having less and less original ideas nowadays. Maybe that’s why I’m not writing as much.

#book place rambles #delete later

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Me wondering why my activity levels are so low: 🙁

Also me: never posting anything

#book place rambles

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Welcome to the 10th annual Mishapocalypse, may the odds be ever in your favor

#book place rambles #mishapocalypse #mishapocolypse 2.0 #misha collins #spn #castiel #destiel

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Reading my old fics is an eye opening experience

#book place rambles

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#book place rambles #night3owl

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Today’s Endgame day and I’m not okay

#book place rambles #avengers #avengers endgame

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I love my mutuals

#book place rambles

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Debating whether or not to take a break from tumblr

#book place rambles