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Five Things I Learned Writing a Series

April 24, 2023 in Writing for Life with 0 Comments

Today’s guest post is by Dan Rice.

When I started writing, I dreamed of creating an epic fantasy series. Hence, I set the goal to bang out a series one book after another. This posed a couple of problems.

First off, my writing was horrible, not marketable at all. My early efforts were so bad, I ultimately decided my only choice was to start over anew.

As I became more knowledgeable of the writerly world, I learned that it’s often best to market a book that works both as a stand-alone and the first in a series. I decided that was the way to go because it’s hard to gain traction while querying without saying you’ll love this book that’s the first in a fifteen-book epic fantasy series.

So that’s what I set out to do: write a book that could kick off a series and be a stand-alone. It took a long time, but eventually I produced a marketable manuscript and found a publisher. Dragons Walk Among Us kicks off The Allison Lee Chronicles, a four-book series. I’m editing the third book and have the initial outline of the fourth and final novel. Continue Reading…

4 Tips to Writing Expanding a Novel into a Series

October 25, 2021 in Novel Structure with 5 Comments

Today’s guest post is by Vivek Hariharan.

Ever since the enormous success of the Harry Potter saga, there have been many writers who stopped writing single novels and focused on writing a series of novels. The successful ones that made waves in the world of fiction are Eragon with four books, The Hunger Games Trilogy, Divergent Trilogy, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Twilight Saga, and the 50 Shades of Grey series.

Novels in a series are more likely to become blockbusters and chartbusters than individual books unless the author is already world renown.

Keeping this in mind, you might have the urge to expand the novel that you have written so carefully into a massive series. However, that is not an easy task. It would mean expanding the world, introducing new characters, building new timelines, creating back stories for the characters, and integrating all of this into each novel without losing the essence of the individual story by overcrowding.

So the most interesting question now is this: How do you create the series and at the same time integrate the individual stories and each character without losing the flavor of each individual novel itself? Here are four key aspects that you should keep in mind when you want to spit your story into a series. Continue Reading…

Strategies for Novelists Who Are Writing a Series

May 17, 2021 in Novel Structure with 2 Comments

I’m reposting this article from some years back, as many fiction writers plan a series but often don’t know the best way to lay out plot over multiple installments.

Many authors plan to write a series, but I’ve noticed when critiquing and editing novels that are part of a series, they often fail to keep in mind important elements that may not pertain to a stand-alone novel. Navigating through a series can be a kind of obstacle course, keeping focus through the many story developments to reach the finish line.

I’m not talking about a series of stand-alone novels that just feature the same character(s) but in different situations, such as in a mystery series showcasing a particular detective. In novels like those, just as with many TV series episodes, the plot is set up, developed, and resolved all in one book.

However, even in such series, you’ll often see characters grow and change. There may be long-term overarching storylines involving the characters that play out over many books.

There is no hard-and-fast rule regarding how to craft a series, but there are some things a writer should be careful to do.

Each Book Must Have a Plot That Resolves

Just as with a singular work, a first book in a series needs to present the characters and their goals and needs. The basic novel structure applies—a protagonist going after a goal, with him either reaching or failing to reach that goal at the climax.

When writing a book series, it is important to know that each book must have its own plot, one that is concluded by the end of the book. You can’t assume readers have read your first book. And even if they have, it may have been a year ago, and they aren’t going to remember all the details. Odds are they will end up confused and frustrated if you make that assumption. Continue Reading…