I think of this as Senior Author Syndrome. Chief exhibits are Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey and Orson Scott Card. The first symptom is forgetting how to hurt your characters. Just pick up a late book and an early book and compare how much jeopardy the characters get into.
I recall reading that Douglas Adams was depressed when he wrote Mostly Harmless, and intended to fix the disasters in the next book (which is totally possible in the HGTTG insane joke logic), but he died before he could write the next book.
I think of this as Senior Author Syndrome. Chief exhibits are Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey and Orson Scott Card. The first symptom is forgetting how to hurt your characters. Just pick up a late book and an early book and compare how much jeopardy the characters get into.
The bizarre exception to this is Douglas Adams’ Mostly Harmless.
I recall reading that Douglas Adams was depressed when he wrote Mostly Harmless, and intended to fix the disasters in the next book (which is totally possible in the HGTTG insane joke logic), but he died before he could write the next book.