Series romances are getting shorter.  Across the board, Harlequin has tightened up their word count guidelines in the last year, condensing most of their series by a few thousand words.  This is good and bad for authors.  On the one hand—maybe I can finish my story faster with a shorter word count!  On the other hand—maybe I can’t finish the story any faster because I have to spend extra time figuring out how to crunch down the story to fit a guideline.  

In order to write series books, authors have to be skilled in knowing how to pare a story down anyhow.  The difference between series romance and single title romance has a lot to do with size and scope.  A series story is tightly focused on the hero and heroine while a single title story can afford a larger cast of characters and—my favorite—additional plot lines.  So as a series author, it stands to reason that I would already be working with a tight story framework and this shortening of the series I write for shouldn’t be a big deal to me.  But let’s look, for a moment, at what I stand to lose in the process if my series books get any shorter. (more…)