never minded standin'

Mystery author Linda Barnes wrote this:

Thank God for the series novel....Cherry Ames,...Penny Parrish, and Nancy Drew....What I learned from those books was simple.

There is life after the last page.  Life goes on.  Books do not end at the happily-ever-after-orange-blossom part.  Indeed, there is infinite possibility before us....The peril of immersing myself in a nonseries novel is formidable.  I'm afraid to get involved with characters because they might die gruesome deaths.  I wept through far too many books as a child.  I don't have the psychic strength to keep reading Jayne Anne Phillips.  I do read her, I read Jane Smiley and Alice Hoffman and many others who threaten my happiness, but I come back to those who write series books because I know the main character will not die and that is very important to me.


[Chapter 25, in Rediscovering Nancy Drew, Copyright 1995.  University of Iowa Press, Iowa City.]
--------------------------------------------
I could relate to that -- was thinking recently that the pleasure of reading the Nancy Drew books was not necessarily that each one was so great, in and of itself -- no, it was the happiness, expectation, and security of knowing that there were a lot more!

The Ghost of Blackwood Hall
The Haunted Bridge
The Clue of the Tapping Heels....

And -- as Barnes writes, Nancy wasn't going to die.  Like on our favorite series TV-shows.  The star can't get killed because there has to be another episode next week.

One of the things that "series books" get criticized for is that they are written according to a "formula." 
Good literature should be original, creative, smart, deep, etc.  It shouldn't be by a "formula" -- i.e., same number of chapters in each book, every chapter ends with a cliffhanger, certain elements are included at certain points to keep a familiar rhythm going, in each book.

Well, there's nothing wrong with great literature, and there's nothing wrong with series books written by a formula.  They are just different kinds of fun and inspiration.

The outside-the-box country singer David Allan Coe has a song where, in one verse, he discusses the use of a "formula" in country music -- the idea that one must include certain topics....

Well it was all that I could do to keep from cryin’


Sometimes it seems so useless to remain.

And you don’t have to call me darlin’…darlin’
You never even called me by my name.

Well you don’t have to call me –
Waylon Jennings
(“Hello – Hello”)…
And you don’t have to call me –
Ch - arley Pride.
And you don’t have to call me
Merle Haggard,
anymore.
Even though you’re on my fight-in’ siiiiiide,

And I’ll hang around as long as you will let me
And I never minded standin’ in the rain.
You don’t have to call me darlin’…darlin’
You never even called me by my name.

Well I’ve heard my name a few times in your phone book
And I’ve seen it on signs where I’ve played.
But the only time I know
I’ll hear David Allan Coe
Is when Jesus has his final judgment day.

So I’ll hang around as long as you will let me
And I never minded standin’ in the rain.
You don’t have to call me darlin’…darlin’
You never even called me by my name.


[spoken]
Well a friend of mine named Steve Goodman wrote that song
And he told me it was the perfect country and western song.
I wrote him back a letter and told him it was NOT the perfect country and western song because he hadn’t said anything at all about

Mama, or

Trains, or
Trucks, or
Prison, or
Getting’ drunk.

Well he sat down and wrote another verse to the song and he sent it to me.
And after readin’ it, I realized that my friend had written the perfect country and western song.

And I felt obliged to include it on this album. The last verse goes like this here:

[back to singing]
Well I was drunk…
the day my mom …
got-outta prison.

And I went
to pick her up
--in the rain.

But before I could get to the station in my pickup
Truck,
She got runned over by a damned old train.

And I’ll hang around as long as you will let me.
And I never minded standin’ in the rain. No,
You don’t have to call me darlin’…darlin’
You never even called me –
Well I wonder why you don’t call me –
Why don’t you ever call me by my name?

[backup chorus: “Ooh—ooohh.”]

-30-