HOW DO YOU WRITE A SERIES WELL?

Have you noticed how some books in a series stutter?

They keep stumbling over the need to bring the new reader up to speed 

at the expense of boring returning readers in a stuttering of origins.

{Coming In October}

Yet, creating a novel series is one of the best ways to build continuous momentum with your book marketing efforts.

BUT HOW DO YOU DO A SERIES WELL?

1.) THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA

A good series will take years.  But you have to start with a strong foundation and a clear vision of where you want to go.

Like any trip, the success of your series depends upon the depth of your planning.

Sketch in the rough framework of your characters' journey ... 

BUT LEAVE IN SOME MYSTERY so that when a great idea occurs to you, you can work it into your narrative.

Make your CANVAS BROAD enough to have room for your tales to evolve along surprising paths.

Long-lived heroes make your task both easier AND harder.

I started the Epic of Samuel McCord with RITES OF PASSAGE set in 1853.  

My very next book was FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE set in 2005.

In essence, I bracketed McCord's life with a lot of room in the middle to tell the many adventures of his life.  

His life doesn't end in 2005 by the way.

Want to know how it will end?  

Read TALES TO BE TOLD AT MIDNIGHT soon to be an audiobook.

Want to see a good spread of his life? 

 Read HUNTER'S MOON that takes him from 1931 to 1943 to 2005.  (Also soon to be an audiobook).

2.) BREATHE LIFE INTO YOUR CHARACTERS

There are NO heroes or villains in real life ...

 just flawed individuals trying to make sense of their lives and pursue dreams that forever seem out of reach.

Know what makes your characters hurt, dream, sigh, or hate.  

Each person you meet on the street is a hero in the movie of their life.  

Make each of your characters like that.

And like real people, your characters must change over the span of your novel series. 

 Sam is achingly lonely in RITES OF PASSAGE.  

A bit giddy on his honeymoon air/steamship adventures in the NOT-SO-INNOCENTS series. 

In HER BONES ARE IN THE BADLANDS, Sam is devastated by the death of his life-long friend/son, Mark Twain.

He is trying to distract himself by making the first talking Western and 

creating the West that only exists in his imperfect memory of what he wanted it to be.

3.) YOUR SETTING IS A CHARACTER.

Researching your setting will give additional ideas on things that could happen in your novel.  

Characters and setting have a relationship that is unique to each of their natures.  

Sam is different in New Orleans than he was in 1895 Egypt.

The world has changed so much from when you were a child.  

Make it so change during the course of your series.

If your character is long-lived, how has the changing world impacted her or his view of himself 

and of his past ... his future?

4.) THE PAST IS NEVER DEAD

As William Faulkner wrote in Requiem for a Nun, "The past is never dead.  It is not even past."

In my last few McCord novels, 

I have snippets of his past as the first chapters that lead into the narrative of his current adventure.

You realize that his long life has consequences that have shaped him and sowed the seeds for current and later troubles.

I got the idea for doing this from the beginning of John Wayne's last film:

5.) JUST WHEN YOU LEARN THE RULES ...

One trap for a lead in a series is that 

as it progresses, she or he becomes so capable that it distances the reader from that character.  

Who worries about Superman making it out of a jam?

But life is just not that way.

Just when you learn the rules for one stage of life, it thrusts you into another where you have to learn a whole batch of new rules ... or fail.

McCord learns to do new, awesome things along the decades.  

But like a hero in a Greek tragedy, 

the more he does, the more mistakes he makes, causing heartbreak and disaster 

while sometimes winning the day but losing his peace of mind.

6.) TRUST THE READER

Have you ever come into a well-written TV show in the middle of an episode?

Usually you caught on fast enough.

Characters usually let the reader know where they stand with the world and other people with

their words and their actions.

If your first chapters are vivid and riveting, the reader will stay with your novel to find out what happens next.

TRUST THE READER. 

7.) DON'T FORGET TO CLOSE THE ARC DOOR

Each book in your series will have its own crisis with your series' major crisis looming overhead.

Your characters will fight, struggle, and overcome each book's self-contained dilemma ...

but your Book-Spanning Threat should impact each character in some way ...

with it creeping closer and seemingly unbeatable each novel ...

until with your last book, you resolve it in some believable way that costs dearly.  

WHAT SERIES HAVE YOU FOUND PARTICULARLY COMPELLING?

WHAT ELEMENTS OF THAT SERIES MADE YOU WANT TO KEEP READING 

ABOUT THAT WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS?