The Bartonville Series Is Like A Tree

The second book in the Bartonville series, “The Queen of Bad Decisions“, is releasing in less than a week. I have had a few questions about things like: Why is the book so short? and Why is book two a prequel to book one? So I thought I would explain my plans for the series and how it will be structured.

Honestly, that structure has changed since I first came up with the idea last year. At that time I wanted all of the volumes to end up about the same size. So one novella, three novelettes, six short stories equaling in total about 30,000 words per book. Over the summer I started looking into serial fiction after hearing so many other authors talking about places like Wattpad and JukePop for publishing serials. What I had thought was a revolutionary series concept, releasing stories ranging from flash to novella length instead of novel length work, turned out to be another form of serialized fiction. Different than the chapter at a time format that “Ready Or Not” has, but still a serial. When I began researching how other people were writing this type of series I decided to drop the 30,000 word per volume format and add in some shorter books. So people have a choice of story length and price.

Think of the series as a tree. A trilogy of novellas will make up the trunk. The main plot of the series, written linearly, will be in the novellas. Shorter stories are like the branches and leaves. In the case of “The Queen of Bad Decisions“, the tree’s roots. I will be using the smaller stories to detail subplots or give a glimpse into minor characters’ lives. I’m even writing a serial inside a serial with “Ready Or Not” on JukePop Serials. That story is also a prequel to “Must Love Sandwiches” and the main character is a minor character in that novella.

I have seen many people say they don’t like shorter fiction, but I am also seeing many essays and articles proclaiming short fiction is trending as readers have less time to indulge in the pastime. I’m rolling the literary dice and hoping that people will like my series.