Bipolar stepper wiring

Can someone explain ... using appropriately small words ... what the
functional difference is between wiring an 8 wire stepper in series or
parallel for bipolar operation? I have 3 PowerMax nema 23 motors that are
2.8 amp in series and 5.6 amps in parallel. I understand how to wire it, but
I would like to know what it means to motor operation to be wired one way or
the other.

Thanks for taking the time to reduce my level of ignorance,
George