Many readers want to dip in occasionally, without having to read the whole series. Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle in a way set that up. Focusing more on the "mystery" than the characters. ... Historical/fantasy series work better, because often the writer has a definitive arc in mind.
Oh that is an interesting point about how this effects character development through a series! I cannot think of a single mystery series that had an overall plot arc. There may be some out there of course, but I don't know any.
One interesting problem that mystery series often have is that the detective is set up with some dark mystery in his own background*. This works well as a hook to attract the reader/viewer, and yet over the course of the series the authors feel the need to drip out information bit by bit so as to keep the hook baited. And the very process of doing that normally takes away the mystery and leaves the detective as fairly mundane by the end. I doubt it is ever planned as such and I have never found it satisfying.
I guess the only other overall arc would be detectives who find a mate, settle down and have a family, which again all too often removes the mysterious element that most detectives seem to require to be considered interesting by audience or author.
That's my other difficulty with the mystery series...is they go on too long. Five - Seven books is okay, but once the writer goes past the seven mark, for some reason or other, they start to phone it in and repeat themselves...the writer often has grown tired of the characters and is just going through the motions.
I have heard of several authors who loathed their detectives by the end. Probably why so many of them kill them off or drop series and start a new one.
* Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford being about the only contented family man detective without any haunted backstory or deep emotional problems, as far as I am aware. He's so unusual it becomes his quirk in its own right.
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Oh that is an interesting point about how this effects character development through a series! I cannot think of a single mystery series that had an overall plot arc. There may be some out there of course, but I don't know any.
One interesting problem that mystery series often have is that the detective is set up with some dark mystery in his own background*. This works well as a hook to attract the reader/viewer, and yet over the course of the series the authors feel the need to drip out information bit by bit so as to keep the hook baited. And the very process of doing that normally takes away the mystery and leaves the detective as fairly mundane by the end. I doubt it is ever planned as such and I have never found it satisfying.
I guess the only other overall arc would be detectives who find a mate, settle down and have a family, which again all too often removes the mysterious element that most detectives seem to require to be considered interesting by audience or author.
I have heard of several authors who loathed their detectives by the end. Probably why so many of them kill them off or drop series and start a new one.
* Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford being about the only contented family man detective without any haunted backstory or deep emotional problems, as far as I am aware. He's so unusual it becomes his quirk in its own right.