I was listening to a great interview with one of my favorite authors: Guy Gavriel Kay on the Adventures in SciFi Publishing podcast and one topic of discussion was the artistic differences between writing a trilogy and writing a stand alone novel. The commercial differences were also covered.
Kay stated (and this is NOT an exact quote, I’m paraphrasing) that readers as a whole tend to be conservative and not seek change therefore commercially trilogies do well but writing is an art and that means change. Stories change, people change.
I kind of lost track at this point since some moron in a Honda Odyssey started driving erratically, but it did get me thinking (once traffic was smooth again) about the art of writing.
Is writing an art or Art?