Hi, what would you say to someone that has several stories planed out and knows whats going to happen and knows the characters but just can't seem to find the motivation or time to actually start the "damned" thing? What would you do to get started? P.S. L

That there’s only one way to eat an elephant: one bite at a time.

Write a map of where the series plans to go, then put it in a proverbial drawer and don’t think about it revisit it once you’ve completed a book and only to modify if need be.

Write a synopsis of how each book will go, and work from that, but don’t use your plot synopsis like a straitjacket.

Just go chapter by chapter and you’ll eventually have a book. Then go chapter by chapter with the next one and you’ll have a series.

Also remember that book series weren’t written overnight. It’s a years and occasionally DECADES long process to complete a full series. Think about it this way. What long book series do you enjoy and how long did it take the author to write them?

Here’s some examples:

Harry Potter: 1991 - 2007. Sixteen years. (JK Rowling took 6 years to write Sorcerer’s Stone)

ASoIAF: 1996 - who fucking knows. 22+ years.

Earth’s Children series: 1980-2011. THIRTY effing ONE years for Jean Auel to complete.

A series isn’t just something that you read on a two week book bender. That’s the consumer’s finished product. A series is, at its heart, a life’s work.

But if you focus on that it looks too enormous to even attempt. So just take it one bite at a time.