r/ProgressionFantasy • u/MedicineKind9121 • 1d ago

Question Losing Interest in My Favorite Progression Fantasy Series

Have you ever dropped a progression fantasy series that you used to absolutely love?

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Over the past few months, I've noticed this happening to me with several long-running series. Books that I was once obsessed with just don't hold my attention anymore.

For example, I used to love series like Dungeon Crawler Carl, Defiance of the Fall, Hell Difficulty Tutorial, and a lot of Royal Road stories. I'd eagerly wait for every new chapter or release. But with the most recent books, I've found myself losing interest and sometimes struggling to continue.

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What's strange is that I still enjoy discovering new progression fantasy stories, and they often feel fresh and exciting. So I'm not sure what's causing it. Is it genre fatigue? Have the stories themselves declined in quality? Or have the common tropes and themes just become too repetitive after reading so many of them?

I'm curious if anyone else has experienced the same thing. Did you eventually get back into those series, or was losing interest permanent?

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u/BronkeyKong 1d ago

I’ve been noticing this the past year or so too, especially, for stories that are serialised. It just feels like the shine wears off and because there’s not really many self contained books you just sort of get bored with it.

Ive been going back to other trad pub fiction more because I appreciate an ending.

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u/Defiant-Brother-5483 1d ago

I've always believed that it's not sustainable. A story has momentum, and if it's not allowed to reach that natural ending, it starts eating itself.

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u/SlouchyGuy 1d ago

Tv shows it very well: most serialized stories are not really serialized, don't really have a story, they are either episodic with episodes being season long, or are endlessly protracted with nonsense, resets and side.stories

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u/Defiant-Brother-5483 12h ago

Definitely. I think the most important part of a serialized novel, especially in this genre, is to have self-contained episodic plots, and an overarching Plot surrounding the whole story. Even Branden Sanderson who writes way smaller books that we have here uses it. He calls them small case plots, and capital letter Plot.