Practical Advice For Writing A Series

Planning to write a series but don’t know what makes a successful series and what makes a random chain of events? Considering I write the “Checkmate” series for Dreamspinner Press, I’ve compiled a stack of notes for my own edification on what it takes to get a successful series off the ground. And because I’m a believer in sharing information, here’s my tips for all you writers out there!

People Innately Understand Serials
[image error]

Daryl Dixon of “The Walking Dead” the resident redneck sexpot.

This very day is a current episode in your life. How many of us have been told our families should be made into a sitcom? And that’s finally been done with the Emmy winning ABC sitcom “Modern Family.” So someone somewhere has been listening to the public. How does this relate to writing?

Serials are the easiest way to develop your main characters over a long period of time, or develop secondary or tertiary characters quickly.

Examples of Main Characters, Secondary Characters, and Tertiary Characters:

Main Characters: Sherlock and Watson (Or in the case of the Checkmate Series: Hogarth and Rook)
Secondary Characters: Folks that show up often. Think Daryl, or the Governor in “The Walking Dead.” (My personal example: Captain Chivalry)
Tertiary Characters: Characters that only appear in that installment. In “Law and Order” that’s the killer. (For me that’s the baddie of the upcoming Checkmate #2, Ree-Alli-Tee.)

Types of Character Growth

As your stories unfold in each installment, there’s types of character growth you need to be aware of.

Main Characters

In the case of main characters, they evolve the slowest. Because they have a lot of story in them! Makes no sense to kill of your main character in the first book and then have the series after him. Unless you’re doing something crazy like he’s a ghost or something. Or something else entirely.

Example of this: J.R. Ward of the “Black Dagger Brotherhood” series in her very first installment killed off the main character as soon as Chapter 5. I was… a bit surprised. But it turns out he wasn’t the main character of that book. But he came up later after several books.

J.R. Ward’s worldbuilding and series planning is just bananas. It’s quite impressive.

But if you’re keeping your main guys around for a while, like “Checkmate’s” Rook and Hogarth, don’t put all of your cards on the table right away. Save some bits. Hold off for later. In “Checkmate” one of the things that comes up is Hogarth’s grandfather, we don’t know all about him, so there’s some opportunity for development later.

Secondary Characters

In the case of secondary characters, like a recurring villain, or even your main character’s co-worker, or even, yes, Daryl in “The Walking Dead.” (Mmmm… Daryl…)

Hello Kitty! As Daryl! My world explodes.

…they develop the a little faster. Think about it this way, you plan to write them out, or kill them off, or have them wander off into the sunset eventually. Like Selena Kyle’s evolution into Catwoman, going from petty crook to the sexy thief by the end of the first installment, and returning later to be a thorn in Batman’s side.

Here’s the kicker about secondary characters, the second you name them or give them any kind of backstory, not only are you building reader curiosity, but you’re also writing them into your story’s mythology. If they appear in Book 1, but don’t even get an acknowledgement in Book 2 like they never existed, and then return in Book 3, readers are going to notice. Even if it’s a sentence or two or “I wonder what he’s doing now…” in Book 2, that’s good enough to foreshadow for Book 3.

Tertiary Characters

For tertiary characters, I call these my “throwaway characters,” they’re the characters that fully evolve over the course of a single installment and they’re gone for good. Like in “Law and Order” this is the guy accused of murder looking to clear his name. This is also the victim. Or the body that washes up on the beach as they sift for clues about her life.

They’re the folks that walk on, say a line or two, and walk off. Or they’re the folks that you introduce as an ally to the main character in Chapter 2 and kill off by Chapter 10. Let’s just say in my current WIP “Switchblade Symphony” I’m flipping a coin on which tertiary character doesn’t make it past Chapter 12.

Types of Serial Plotlines
Type I: Sense of Discovery

The sense of discovery can encompass a world, a character, or a situation. In my WIP “Switchblade Symphony” the story revolves around my main character Gav’s discovery of the cyberpunk world around him. His love interest, Nyoka, his sense of discovery revolves around himself and his psychic gift.

Using the sense of discovery, your readers are discovering the world along side your characters. Remember that scene in Disney’s “Tarzan” where Jane finally meets the gorillas and is accepted into Tarzan’s world? Got chills of wonder didn’t you?

“Mom, Dad, meet the girl I’m gunna marry.”

 

Or how about the part that after all the frolicking and frivolity in Mulan during the musical number “A Girl Worth Fighting For” they come across the burned out village and our band of misfits are met first hand with the Huns brutality. Your stomach dropped right?

 

Here’s the catch: If you’re writing a full fantasy world, like a space station, a megacity, or even the rolling hills of Tolkein’s Shire, and your characters are discovering it along with the readers? You need to supply the details to make them feel it. Believe it. Engage all of the senses: Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound. You don’t need to go epically overboard. And once again, don’t lay all of your cards on the table at once. You still need material for a sequel.

Speaking of a sequel! Don’t have any ideas for a sequel? Close your eyes and point at a place in your world’s map. Your story will take place there.

Type II: The Puzzle

Writing a mystery or suspense story? Or some swashbuckling adventure to find the hidden idol before the love interest is boiled in oil by cannibals? This is for you.

A few things to know about puzzles, if your reader figures out the whodunit by page 60 and they guessed correctly, they win your game and they don’t play again. As in they don’t buy the next book. If the reader doesn’t figure it out, they play your game again, they even read your book again to figure out how you got from A to B.

Apparently Andrea of “The Walking Dead” totally lost the game when she still didn’t put together the Governor was the bad guy even when confronted with his personal zombie aquariums and keeping his zombie daughter in a dog kennel.

Oh, that Governor, such a winner.

Puzzle stories require a bit of planning up front. If you’re a pantser–you write by the seat of your pants aka you make it up as you go–this likely won’t work for you. Jillian Chantal writes romantic mysteries and her method is she writes the start of the book, then the end of the book, and then threads them together in the middle. The trick is you knowing your killer or the solution to the puzzle up front, that way you know what clues to drop along the way.

A Word About Story Mythology

When ABC’s drama “Lost” was still on TV, and still popular, we heard a lot of behind the scenes talk about the show’s mythology. Well, what the fuck is that? Is it about the gods of the island? Is it about some kind of magical hoodoo? No. It’s basically your worldbuilding, facts, figures, and previous character events in your story. Now time for an obligatory picture of Josh Holloway who played Sawyer.

Mmmm… Sawyer…

Here’s what you need to know about your story’s mythology:

You need elements of your mythology in all of your books to remain a series, and the mythology revolves around a character.

So for example: You can have a Sherlock Holmes story just with Watson so long as Sherlock’s influence is present even if he is off-screen doing something else. But if you have a Sherlock Holmes story without Sherlock or Watson anywhere in it and starring Besty Jo from Tuscon, it’s not part of the series.

The key to the mythology you have created, it shouldn’t take up more than 30% of your story. The mythology is all the stuff that happened in previous books, it’s the stuff your previous readers hone in on, it’s the stuff that new readers go back and read your backlist to find out what you’re talking about.

Think of it like a grossly expanded version of Chekhov’s gun, which is a metaphor for foreshadowing. The idea is the gun on the mantle in Act I must be fired by Act III.

So if you have a gun in Book One, and your character pawns it to make rent, and then in Book Four a guy is killed with the previously pawned gun, that’s your mythology.

Math for Writers: How to Compute 30% Mythology

For those that are utterly math challenged, like myself, let’s do this the easy way:

For a 10 chapter novella you need 7 chapters of ‘plot stuff’ and 3 chapters of ‘mythology stuff.’ It works out to a 70/30 ratio.

The key is in those three chapters of mythology, one of those chapters needs to be something positive and the other two need to be something negative. Or the other way around, two chapters are something positive and the one chapter is negative. Also these chapters do not need to be all in a row, sprinkle them around.

Example of a Basic Outline

Chapter 1-2: Establish the hero’s problem. Like say a girl is kidnapped.
Chapter 3: The love interest is introduced and the kidnapped girl is this guy’s sister. — this is the mythology.
Chapter 4-7: Like a typical romance the hero and love interest face the problem together of finding the love interest’s sister amid the growing attraction.
Chapters 8-9: The hero and love interest finally consummate the affair. But the hero finds out it’s all a ruse and the love interest never had a sister. Instead he’s a hitman hired to knock off the hero! — This is more mythos here.
Chapter 10: You have your ultimate showdown of the ultimate destiny. Conflicted by his feelings, the hero lets the villain escape to return another day. (And another book!)

What have we learned: Chapter 3 and Chapter 8 were your 2/3 of awesome. Chapter 9 was your 1/3 of bad news.

In Conclusion

With a little forethought, and single-minded dedication to writing a series. Even a long one that’s eleven books. Holy crap! Writing serials can be ultimately rewarding. Take in mind, building up reader momentum on a series takes time. “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” wasn’t an instant success, neither was “Black Dagger Brotherhood”, and dare I say, neither was “Twilight.” So, don’t sweat the small stuff when you’re first starting out on the long road ahead. By the time your third book is out, you’ll likely pick up some traction and people will be clamoring through your backlist.

 

The Great Question

So, what do you think? Are you brave enough to try writing a series? What kind of tricks have you picked up for your method? Share any tips or ideas! I’m looking forward for what you have to say!

Now have a gif of a Daryl holding a baby.

OMG WHAT ARE THESE FEELINGZZZNNNNGGGGHHH!

 

The post Practical Advice For Writing A Series appeared first on Lex Chase.