Books With Endless Drama (No Direction)?

[Anonymous]

1) What do you call a book that has no direction?
what i mean by this is, a novel that doesn't have a ending. The story isn't leading to nothing. Things happen but since the story has no direction, it becomes never ending. You don't know how the story ends.

We knew how Harry Potter would end. We knew how Lord of the rings would end.

I know there are plenty of TV shows like this but where are the books?

For Example: "This Is Us". The show IMO has no direction. It just endless drama that can span years and years with no clear end in sight. "Empire" is another show with endless drama that can last for years.

I love those shows because of the drama and the characters but where are some books like that?

I would love to read something in the vain of "This Is Us" or "Empire". Something different. But i don't know where to look to find those books that has that kind of storytelling.

"Empire" and "This Is Us" are classified as "Drama" but i can't find that genre in books.

lol anybody can help me out and find these books with no direction and just have endless drama

 

[HareBrain]

Usually when this looks like it's happening in a book series, it's seen as the author losing control of the plot, and a bad sign (for example, The Wheel of Time, A Song of Ice and Fire). You might be the first person I've come across who actually wants it!

It might help if you let us know what kind of stories, though. Traditional fantasy? Urban? Sci-fi? Etc.

 

[The Judge]

I've not seen either of the TV shows you mention, but I rather suspect that even if there is no apparent ending in sight on a large scale, on a smaller scale there are in fact proper endings in that there is some kind of resolution of some aspects of the plot, if not in every episode, then at the end of a season. (Exceptions would be long-running serials of the Coronation Street/EastEnders kind, of course, but even these have story lines which resolve eventually!)

Individual novels aren't the equivalent of complete five year TV shows, but are more like separate episodes/seasons, so the endings are there to give a sense of completion, even if the series continues with the same characters -- the big baddie might not be killed, but his immediate nefarious plan is scotched, at least temporarily. And I think most people would complain if there wasn't resolution at the end of the individual novels.

Have you read A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin? That has plenty of drama, but no one knows how it's going to end!

 

[Anonymous]

I've not seen either of the TV shows you mention, but I rather suspect that even if there is no apparent ending in sight on a large scale, on a smaller scale there are in fact proper endings in that there is some kind of resolution of some aspects of the plot, if not in every episode, then at the end of a season. (Exceptions would be long-running serials of the Coronation Street/EastEnders kind, of course, but even these have story lines which resolve eventually!)

Individual novels aren't the equivalent of complete five year TV shows, but are more like separate episodes/seasons, so the endings are there to give a sense of completion, even if the series continues with the same characters -- the big baddie might not be killed, but his immediate nefarious plan is scotched, at least temporarily. And I think most people would complain if there wasn't resolution at the end of the individual novels.

Have you read A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin? That has plenty of drama, but no one knows how it's going to end!

Yes Game of thrones is anther tv show with endless drama with no end in sight or atleast no one is sure how it ends and even when Danny or Jon gets the iron throne, i still feel like the story can continue for years.

I want books like that.

 

[Anonymous]

Usually when this looks like it's happening in a book series, it's seen as the author losing control of the plot, and a bad sign (for example, The Wheel of Time, A Song of Ice and Fire). You might be the first person I've come across who actually wants it!

It might help if you let us know what kind of stories, though. Traditional fantasy? Urban? Sci-fi? Etc.

Stories like secret affairs and baby kidnapping and family drama, plotting and scheming ...lol just a bunch of endless plot twisting drama

 

[The Judge]

Have you read the novels, though? If not, there you are. And as HB says, there are the Wheel of Time books, which are lengthy.

 

[Anonymous]

Have you read the novels, though? If not, there you are. And as HB says, there are the Wheel of Time books, which are lengthy.

"this is us" and "empire" have no novels i dont think lol

and someone recommended "Literary Fiction" and "Contemporary YA"....you know anything about those genres?

 

[Brian G Turner]

What do you call a book that has no direction?
what i mean by this is, a novel that doesn't have a ending. The story isn't leading to nothing. Things happen but since the story has no direction, it becomes never ending. You don't know how the story ends.

Literary fiction.

No, seriously, I'm not just trying for a cheap laugh.

 

[Toby Frost]

This sounds rather like soap opera, in that things happen to individuals but they have no real consequences in terms of an overarching plot (because there isn't one).

In fantasy, I'd go with the Wheel of Time, which has several books that are often accused of just treading water. In SF, what springs to mind are the sorts of books where a team of adventurers has a separate adventure in each book but effectively begins again in the next one, like episodes of Star Trek. You could try Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series (although they do move forward), and there are probably lots of other military SF series that do this. In stories set in franchises, like the Warhammer 40,000 setting, major characters simply can't be killed off and big plots can't really end because the franchise needs them to stay open.

Brian has a point about literary fiction: it seems that tight plotting is regarded as bad form in that genre.

 

[HareBrain]

Brian has a point about literary fiction: it seems that tight plotting is regarded as bad form in that genre.

I don't think the OP wants a lack of tight plotting -- s/he just wants an endless stream of it. Literary fiction is therefore a poor choice because the books almost never come in series. They're also rarely about drama for the sake of it.

The Sookie Stackhouse series (13 books) might be the kind of thing they're after.

 

[The Judge]

"this is us" and "empire" have no novels i dont think lol

I've no idea -- but I think you missed the point of my post, which was replying to yours about the Game of Thrones TV show. If you've not read A Song of Ice and Fire on which GoT is based, that's one series for you to get hold of.

I'd agree with HB that Literary Fiction is unlikely to be of much help, since the likes of Anita Shreve and Lionel Shriver don't tend to write long series as far as I'm aware. As for YA, I avoid it as much as possible, so I can't help you a great deal, but I understand Cassandra Clare has a big following and her books do, I think, form a series.

 

[Parson]

Have you read A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin? That has plenty of drama, but no one knows how it's going to end!

---- With George RR Martin's death.... Maybe


Seriously:

Laurence Dahners ... has a series of Ell Donsai books which do what I thing the OP wants. It's a YA series of near future SF. They are real page turners. I liked what someone who posts here said (Senior moment: I forget who.) "They are like popcorn, not really good for you, but you just can't stop eating them.

Amazon.com: Quicker (an Ell Donsaii story #1) eBook: Laurence Dahners: Kindle Store

 

[The Bluestocking]

The Sookie Stackhouse series (13 books) might be the kind of thing they're after.

Well, the storylines all got resolved in the end quite tidily!

I'd suggest picking up urban fantasy series that don't seem to have an end in sight yet like Eileen Wilks WORLD OF THE LUPI series, Faith Hunter's JANE YELLOWROCK series, Jim Butcher's HARRY DRESDEN series etc.

On the YA side, Cassandra Clare's books are all set within the Shadowhunter world. There are several series but all the stories are interconnected in one way or another and the drama just keeps going.

And of course, the most no-end-in-sight-with-soapy-drama series par excellence is GRRM's A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE series.

 

[BAYLOR]

Never ending sagas seem to be popular with Publishers and readers.

 

[Randy M.]

I agree with Toby that this sounds like soap opera: A never-ending series of incident with minimal narrative aim. The closest I can think of are the interminable serialized novels of the 19th century like Varney the Vampire or Eugene Sue's The Mysteries of Paris, which I've not read, only read about. I saw the later reissued within the last year or so, I believe, and it is a massive book.

Beyond that, some urban fantasy might fit since they have recurring characters and as a group seem more similar to the recurring characters in mystery novels than the usual sf/f/h. I'm thinking Jim Butcher, Kat Richardson, Ben Aaronovich, etc.


Randy M.

 

[tinkerdan]

Published 12 years after: Paul Clifford::

Eugene Sue's The Mysteries of Paris

:: And it starts with::
It was a cold and rainy night,

 

[soulsinging]

Literary fiction.

No, seriously, I'm not just trying for a cheap laugh.

I had the same thought. Willie Collins was first to my mind, specifically the Moonstone and Woman in White. Also, Dumas and Dickens.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

specifically the Moonstone and Woman in White. Also, Dumas and Dickens.

But The Moonstone and The Woman in White, plus everything I've read by Dickens, have resolutions eventually. They're just long books in which a lot happens before all the loose ends are tied up.

I've not read that much by Dumas. The Three Musketeers seems to tie up its loose ends, as does Twenty Years After, but then you get to the first volumes of the The Vicomte de Bragelonne and things do begin to ramble for a while. But then with The Man in the Iron Mask the plot is tighter and there is a decisive ending to the series.

In The Count of Monte Cristo it's always clear where the plot is headed, but the fun is in seeing it get there.

 

[Overread]

I don't think books tend to lend themselves well to this kind of chaotic presentation.

Soaps on the TV work well like this because you've got a long series of minor and major plot lines that interconnect. So when one minor or major ends there's another ready to take its place. They also work because the viewers and the actors/characters continually cycle. That is to say they expect to lose viewers over time, but gain new ones and have old ones come back again. It's not a continual production (though you get some die hard fans in any fanclub).

The TV's shows essentially build toward what is summed up in the Simpsons - lots of stuff happens and at the end its basically the same as the beginning. Even soaps with all their story arcs are essentially the same kind of characters doing the same things in most episodes. Something like CSI or NCIS would be prime examples of where everything kind of is mostly the same through the series - you can drop in at nearly any point and barring the beginning and termination episodes not much happens that you can't sit through an episode.



I think books don't lend themselves well from intent because readers like a story and a never ending story, as attractive as it is, tends to be rather weak on story from most writers. You get a few long running series like the Dragons of Pern or Discworld but they tend to change a lot through their storylines.

The closest I can think to unchanging would be stories teid to franchises. Gamesworkshop's Warhammer and Dungeons and Dragons inspired works would be closer to un-ending by intent.


Otherwise I think comics from the likes of DC or Marvel would be a better bet. Those long ever changing comic-hero stories

 

[Toby Frost]

Does anyone know of a sort of family saga set in space, or in a fantasy world? I mean the sort of thing where X has adventures, gets married, and then becomes a minor character in the adventures of his son, Y, who enlists the help of his cousin, who in turn has a daughter of her own... and so on without an obvious ending, and with the focus moving down the family line. The Dune books almost qualify, but I think the jumps in time between the volumes rule them out. I know this structure has been used in historical novels before.

I once got talking to a man who had written for the radio soap The Archers, which might be the longest-running soap there is. He said that plot details were dropped in so that they could be picked up years later: he had given someone an illegitimate son just so this son could show up 20 years on to claim his inheritance and create a new story that way.