>>>Overall a good story, but it makes me wish for a little less new
>>>set-up and a little more actual *closure*.
>>
>>Yeah, sorry about that. It could be argued, and I would be
>>hard-pressed to disagree, that the "sub-arc within larger
>>television-style series concept" thing doesn't entirely work in
>>episodic prose.
>
>The actual shows themselves strive for this kind of thing, though,
>too. They may solve the case in 45 minutes, but rarely are any of the
>personal problems of the characters put to rest so quickly.

Let's take a story like Ash Knight. It's definitely part of a larger arc, and it doesn't actually *end* any important threads, but it has some real development and *payoff* from elements introduced in previous stories.

Now, for a moment, imagine a version of the story where:

- Touga doesn't release a wurm, just does something vague and malevolent that will probably be explained at some point.
- The order of the Ash Knights is mentioned by Balder and then never brought up again in that story.
- The Dwarf district is introduced as part of Juni's sightseeing trip, with no mention of Ironbridge for now.
- Juni's journeyman trial is carried out entirely off-screen by Kate.

You end up with a story that has roughly the same setpieces, but is a whole less interesting and satisfying to read. The reader may or may not feel a sense of pay-off once we actually *get* to Juni receiving her Ironbridge blade and being inducted into the Order of the Ash Knights, however long that may take. But for now, it's just a whole lot *more* set-up on top of all the *existing* set-up, and that just gets less and less fun as it goes on.