Welcome to the Elsewhere, where you know what you're going to get in general, but look forward to the particulars. See, you know this is about writing fiction, not about ... recipes or political advocacy or sports. Well, they may figure into future articles, but in the context of writing.

This series of bleatings has an underlying theme: things to consider when writing. Here's one more for this installment: how to give the audience what it expects while still be novel and surprising.

Some authors don't care. They write one story in one certain voice, one certain setting, one certain theme and they never use that combination again. Others use the same thing, over and over again. Of-times, they use the same plot devices (sometimes, they use the same plots.)

Issac Asimov's Foundation series of shorts and novels are about the last colony of humanity pinning their hopes on a humanistic, non-violent foundation centered around psychohistory. Each novel had a representative of the last book's major power going out to explore the 'out there,' only to find the major power is being controlled by an outer force so powerful as to be able to provide a convincing totality of illusion that the inner major power was unmolested when it was actually under complete control. Same plot, over and over again. Sold millions of books.

Shows there's nothing wrong with giving the audience the same story over and over.

Jacqueline Carey's "Kushiel" books (a completed trilogy and the first of another) are massive affairs, an alternate history of feudal Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Each progresses the story further along a convoluted plot for succession of the unified throne, but the game grows bigger and in a different direction each time. Along the way, the heroine grows to love the hero who cannot allow himself to love, but does. NYT best seller.

Shows there's nothing wrong with giving the audience what it expects, but subtly changed.

Orson Scott Card's "Orignal Ender" books break with this. The first follows Ender as the genius child-saviour. The second has Ender in anonymous exile, more like the wandering judge in disguise than the feted human weapon he was in the first book. The third and fourth go off to never-never land, with psychobabble hallucinations interspersed between that and a galactic war. All books observe human psychology, but their underlying themes are different. Considered a canon of modern sci.fi.

Shows there's nothing wrong with giving the audience something out of left field.

In some, there is a repeating underlying plot, or plot elements that are the same. James Bond will always encounter a beautiful girl who will be somehow central to the plot. Allied, opposed, or simply the villain's foil and weakness, the girl will figure into the plot somehow.

In others, there is a repeating theme, even if the plots are markedly different. Star Wars films always preach to hope that good will prevail, that there are forces beyond what is known that can help or hurt, and that hatred or fear will lead to downfall. Same themes, different plots.

In still others, there is a common element, something that underlies related themes, just as a common theme underlies related plots. What is it? Mood? Outlook? In some collections of stories, themes may vary widely, but this commonality persists. Star Trek films, for example, have varying themes, but the common feel of hopefulness.

So it is with writing. A sequel, prequel or side story is a powerful temptation. Be aware of the need to give the audience at least some iota of commonality on the plot / theme / mood axis. You can't have a tragedy in your first story be followed by a love story that resolves well in the second. Even if the stories share plot devices such as setting (they're both set in the same fantasy kingdom) or characters, they'd feel wrong if the mood were to change so suddenly.

On the other hand, if Issac Asimov could get away with rewriting the same plot four times, perhaps originality is best left in the heap.

But I think not. I would rather try to entertain my readers with something undoubtedly related, but in no way identical to what has gone before in that series.

Now, cribbing from other series I've penned? That's another story.