It’s less than a month until the launch of Maze Running, the fourth and final book in the First Aid for Fairies series.
The fourth and FINAL book.
And right now, I’m asking myself: Why is it the final book? This is a successful series, with lots of fans, with recognisably stunning covers, set in a world where I could easily have found dozens more adventures. So why have I stopped?
Was I bored? (No! I love this world and these characters.)
Did my publishers say, nah, that’s enough thanks. (Not to me…)
Was I running out of readers? (Nope, not that either!)
So why, as a new-ish writer, trying to build a career as a real proper writer, have I stopped writing a successful series?
It’s a bit daft, really. I have strong characters I enjoying working with, and a formula which could repeat endlessly in different parts of Scotland, with different baddies and different magic.
But that’s really the point: I don’t want it to become a formula. I want each of my books to be original and different, not to feel tired and samey. And while I don’t think I was anywhere near that with the First Aid series, I suspect I would have got there before I hit double figures! So I wanted to stop while the books were getting steadily stronger and more exciting.
Some of my readers are a bit upset, even politely annoyed, that I’m ending the series here, but actually that’s quite good (sorry!) because I want to leave you wanting more. Perhaps you’ll go on to make up your own stories set in the fabled beasts’ world. I also hope you’ll wait eagerly for whatever I write next…
Another major reason for ending the series here is that my characters kept growing up. Because I have been very specific about each adventure’s time of year, there have been months between each book, and Helen and her friends are now all more than a year older than they were in First Aid For Fairies And Other Fabled Beasts. If I kept writing about them for another few months, and honestly reflected their lives and concerns, I wouldn’t be writing for 8-12 year olds, I’d be writing for teenagers, which I’m happy to do, but not within this series.
Also I don’t want to get too comfortable with these characters, nor do I want to tread the same paths with them again. I know them really well, and I’ve taken several of them on tough emotional journeys, as well as dangerous quests. I don’t want to artificially push them backwards just so we can watch them develop all over again. (Yes, Yann, I’m talking about you. And Lee and Rona, and maybe even Helen.) I want to meet and work with NEW characters. Though I really am going to miss these ones.
I don’t want to be pigeonholed as a writer either. I want to write lots of different kinds of books (which I’ve possibly achieved already with picture books, retellings and teen novellas.) But I want to write other novels too – my only standalone novel Rocking Horse War sometimes gets a bit lost amongst Helen’s adventures, so I want to concentrate on other ideas like that for a while.
So, sorry to all the First Aid for Fairies fans out there. No more books about Helen healing her fabled beast friends at specific seasons of the year.
This is the end.
But I think it’s best to go out with a bang!
And here’s the cover of Maze Running. What do you think?
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