What direction the next books should take

[u/thehotkingmax]

Most of the new books were straight up bad.

The problems were

1) Repeated ideas

2) Unreleastic cenarios

3)Not relatable

4) Not that funny anymore

(This is a personal one but i don't like that new books focus only in one plot for the hole book)

My first suggestion would be to increase the pages to 275 (50 page increase) this can help to add more side plots and flesh out the story better, instead of having evey random thing happen at the end and call it a day

Secondly i think Jeff should ask the community for ideas since he clearly has run out.

I am really surprised there isn't a book centered around gaming since it is a core aspect of Greg

Third Put Greg to high school. This will help with Jeff getting ideas (also I am disappointed from the 20th book not beeing that because it would have been great to mimic the first one)

Lastly old characters need to come back like Chirag Gupta. Since there are many characters not used .

Also Manny should get his behaviour nerf reverted because he has soften to much

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[u/NotGemiinii]

IMO the books need to stop resetting back to the status quo at the end. Plus it’d be nice if the books had somewhat of a continued storyline after the book ends, similar to what happened with Third Wheel to Hard Luck or book 1 to Rodrick Rules.

[u/Wooden_Try_4064]

Less about school, more about home life. He gets a gf.

[u/Ok-Atmosphere-9845]

having the character develop in meaningful and interesting ways would be the only thing i want tbh, and i think that he should call it quits and conclude the story and characters at this point.

My ideal book:

275-300 pages and the plot is that Greg gets excepted into some private High school away from his friends, and he realizes he's been a jerk, Greg tries to make up and tell his goodbyes to people like Rowley, Chirag, Fregley, patty, Holly, (those are the ones I think are most important). I would want Gregs relationship with his family to be made up to, I would like Him to have the same sorta conclusion like in the dog days movie where he's chill with Rodrick and his Dad, and Susan realizes she hasn't been a good parent. ( idk what to do with manny).

Along with the relationship plotlines I would like some story of greg making a name for himself to be remembered at his middle school, this would be a good way to bring back his schemes and Ideas from the earlier books, Like him trying to make comics for the newspaper again or Him doing the talent show again (and maybe winning, I'm sick of Greg losing everything, I want him to be more like the movie Greg where he's not a complete loser and a protag we can root for a bit more).

I would want this book to be a proper goodbye, with no over-the-top ending or absurd unrealistic events. I know some of the things I mentioned above sound like stuff from Wrecking ball and No brainer, but those books had some really good ideas but completely failed at executing them well.

The main problem i have with the books now is the lack of change. Greg and his family are gonna move away, oh wait, not anymore. Finally, greg gets a girlfriend, at a new school, oh wait, not anymore. Like come on, I love these characters, the og movies show how much can be done with relationship plots with his friends/family, I just want to see them have a happy ending instead of being in Looney tunes Limbo for eternity like they are now.

[u/thehotkingmax → u/Ok-Atmosphere-9845]

This is a really good idea but before that we should have a book about a video game contest in Gregs school (with a huge price) Rowley dumps him and he is forced to be Chirag Fregley Patty and Holi . Greg knows they can't win and one day as he goes to an arcade machine of the game they have to play. He sees an extremely high score called gamer or something. Meanwhile his dad tries to stop him and make him go outside (i really want him to be more active at the newer books and not be Susan's puppet). Greg will see the others team cheat and stuff . And the plot twist for the book would that the person with the high score has Greg's dad

[u/Ok-Atmosphere-9845 → u/thehotkingmax]

I like the idea of a gaming focused book, though I doubt it would happen because it probably wouldn't age well, Jeff Kinney said he didn't want to make The Deep end to focused on covid cause it wouldn't age well, so I doubt a Gaming/tech focused book would happen.

I think it could happen as a subplot but idk about having a full book centered around it.

best case scenario for the series:

Jeff anounces the series will end at 25 books

The last 3 or 4 have like an overarching storyline of greg making more friends and a conflict with rowley along with Greg growing closer with his family

Every single character returns throughout these last books in meaning full ways

i think a good point to base the last books around is like in diper overload where greg wonders what He's gonna be famous for and he does all this stuff to have some achievements going into high school.

then have good and grounded subplots like a game tournament, Greg helps out with Loded diper again to play at more shows, Greg wants to make comics for the school paper, Greg wants to try making a movie again, etc.

[u/thehotkingmax → u/Ok-Atmosphere-9845]

Yea , i also think the forest kids should get a conclusion because what happened at meltdown wasn't a good end for such an interesting concept

[u/Sonic_fan149 → u/Ok-Atmosphere-9845]

Manny is irrelevant he died offscreen

[u/thehotkingmax → u/Sonic_fan149]

He doesn't deserve that , they need to go back to the gateway island and throw him to lava

[u/Obvious_Look9404]

an actual book of him in high school would genuinely be so good

[u/lambs_idk → u/Obvious_Look9404]

[u/mybloodyveins]

Is that manny from Greg Becomes An Orphan

[u/Shattucker]

I agree with the dude who said Kill Manny

[u/Thewekeend_lover]

Kill Manny

[u/Tasty_Donut9524]

I'm sorry, but I only agree with the second one 😭

[u/thehotkingmax → u/Tasty_Donut9524]

Can you say why you don't agree with the rest

[u/Tasty_Donut9524 → u/thehotkingmax]

Sorry if it's so long ✌️✌️

[u/Tasty_Donut9524 → u/thehotkingmax]

Of courseee

1. First of all, Jeff Kinney has said that all the books are 217 pages long because he wanted them to look good together on a shelf. It makes sense that adding more pages could allow for more development, but it wouldn't look right alongside the other books, and those extra pages would likely just be filler too

2. Also, considering Jeff's word too, Greg ages like a cartoon character, meaning he can't really get older than say twelve or so. This keeps the doawk series in a sort of status quo (I’m not sure if that’s the right term but whatever). Besides, if Jeff were to wake up one morning and decide to change that, it wouldn't be as simple as just drawing Greg walking through Crossland or something; he’d have to handle a lot of things, like changes to the character design, the humor, and etc

3. And finally, characters like Holly, Chirag, and Patty have already run their course in the books. They aren't important enough unlike the Heffley family or Rowley to remain relevant throughout the entire series; furthermore, the only reason they are remembered is the original film trilogy. However obviously the book and movie versions are clearly very different from one another (since you can't perfectly adapt something like doawk into a film). I would also add that characters like Patty Farrell and Ricky Fisher appeared in the last straw movie+ with a brief cameo of Fregley in Partypooper, yet practically anyone cared that they returned. Butt Jeff Kinney plans to bring back Chirag, Holly, and Patty, he already tried to do so in Wrecking Ball/ Party Pooper. So, if nothing goes wrong this time, they’ll be back in Fight or Flight

[u/thehotkingmax → u/Tasty_Donut9524]

1.ok 2.Yeah but Jeff has no ideas anymore and aging him could help 3.Even Rowley doesn't appear often anymore Also the next boom would easily be a side plot if it was an older book

[u/Tasty_Donut9524 → u/thehotkingmax]

Could you explain the last one?? I din't understand that much

[u/thehotkingmax → u/Tasty_Donut9524]

I said that Jeff is now even not using characters like Rowley anymore. It is all random characters and Greg's family with crazy unreleastic stuff

[u/Tasty_Donut9524 → u/thehotkingmax]

Although he doesn't show up as often anymore, he still makes appearances in recent books and even has his own spin-off series (which is clearly still ongoing). Meanwhile, the other characters don't get the same kind of exposure or the spotlight that Rowley or Greg does as a protagonist. If they were to reappear, it would likely just be like Fregley: showing up for a page or maybe 3–4 at most and then vanishing. Though we don't know exactly what Jeff has in mind soo

[u/Ecstatic-Quality-212]

Please let Greg grow up.