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How Do You Decide What to Write Next?
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It's a mixture of whatever madness is bouncing around in my head, whilst being concious of writing something that's not too similar to whatever I just published.
I usually have 2 or 3 books on the go at once, so it's more a case of which one do I concentrate on next and it's usually the one closest to completion. I try not to do two Man From U.N.D.E.A.D.s in a row, but my chaotic brain usually prevents that anyway.
Yes, I rarely have only one thing on the go, at the moment there are half a dozen projects sitting waiting for my attention
Well, I'm writing book 2, and after that it'll be book 3, all in the same series. I'm writing 2 and 3 back to back, so there won't be a huge delay in bringing them out (and also so that I don't lose the impetus of writing, which seems to happen when I get into editing).When book 3 is done, I'll start working on a new series. Either it'll be s spin-off in the same universe, or it'l be something totally different. It'll definitely be a series though, rather than a standalone novel.
Darren and Jim - I tried to write more than one thing at once but I became too scattered and ended up spreading myself too thin. Do you find you complete all the stories you're working on at around the same time? Tim - why do you prefer series over standalones?
With a series, after book 1 you've already got the world and many of the characters established, so getting going is much easier and quicker. Then when it comes to selling, the different parts feed off each other, so the sales for the series as a whole becomes more than simply the sum of its parts. Plus you have options, such as making part 1 permafree to generate sales for parts 2 and 3 should you desire.
Robert wrote: "Darren and Jim - I tried to write more than one thing at once but I became too scattered and ended up spreading myself too thin. Do you find you complete all the stories you're working on at around..."No, projects get completed when they get completed. The deadlines could be a couple of years apart. I can be thinking about the basic outline of one whilst out walking, then when I get home I might be doing the final edits of another.
Sometimes a project will get a couple of weeks as the sole job, but I keep having to break off to earn money and similar
As I take ages to finish anything, I've always got a queue of stories waiting to be told. It's easier carrying on with the next in a series though, as you've already spent so long with the people you've written about. Always provided you haven't got fed up with them of course.
I generally don't like reading series books, cos normally you know that themain character will live at the end. Unless, that is, you can contrive to continue the story, but have different characters. So I don't like writing that stuff. Also, by the time I've finished editing a book I'm sick of the b****y people. I also have all sorts of bits and pieces of sub-plots around. If I have a good idea, or a vivid dream (usually quite wierd) I'll jot it down for later, so I prefer to pick that up and run with it.
Which reminds me, there was a particularly strange character I met on holiday thta I just have to fit in somewhere.
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Will
Maybe they'll still be alive at the end of the first or even second books, but there's nothing says the main character has to survive the series. Anyhow, the only "guarantee" is if the story is written in 1st person (and even then, there are plenty of examples of the main character getting killed)I'm quite prepared to have POV characters killed off. I've even killed somebody mid sente
Character down! Character down! Dial three nines - fetch a body bag!
I know what you mean about fitting in the strange characters, but the delightful eccentricities of more normal folk can be great fun to include as well :-)
Ignite wrote: "Character down! Character down! Dial three nines - fetch a body bag!"'Ang on, you're taking *my* word for it that he's dead??? He might just have been biffed on the nut...
That's the cracking thing about doing a nasty to your POV character - you don't know what really happened, cos the scene just stops! Bwahahaha etc.
Robert wrote: "Darren and Jim - I tried to write more than one thing at once but I became too scattered and ended up spreading myself too thin. Do you find you complete all the stories you're working on at around..."Robert, I don't have deadlines to worry about and so things just finish when they finish. I find that having more than one thing on the go at any given time keeps me fresh. I can take time off from the main project and dip into something else for a while. It also means that I'm not tied down to just one genre/series/topic, which is liberating.
Cool! Thanks for all the replies people!I tried to write more than one thing at once but it never felt like I was getting anywhere, always just doing bits and pieces at a time. I decided this year to just focus on one thing at a time so I could get things completed, so far it's worked out pretty well.
Focus is good. Finishing is better. Good luck with it!
I also prefer to write one thing at once. Otherwise I would never complete my stories. I don't write all the time. I tend to write when the inspiration comes. Sometimes I have a new idea, but won't write anything because I feel I am going over similar ground. To put it another way, I like to write about what I consider to be new things.Interesting thread.
Was delighted to hear Val McDermid on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs saying she'd start with a 'small' idea or interesting fact, and it'd maybe take ten years of accumulating other bits and pieces before it became a novel. She does bring out a book a year, that's a pace that suits her. But it does mean that she has several ideas at a time brewing in the back of her mind.
she also commented on this morning's Today programme that she gets her character names from various places - one was called after the architecture in Durham Cathedral. Norman Undercroft!
Does she have one called Secret Cellar?
In my version of GingerLily's Dungeon*, I have a barmaid called Spike... (and some of the chairs you don't want to sit down on too quickly!)* which is a theme pub, in typical Irish tradition!
And do you have an Iron Maiden?
I'm finishing the second book of a trilogy at the moment. It started as one novel and the draft kind of grew into 3 distinct ginormous parts.The first I published in May, the second in due out in August and I'll be looking to publish the third before Christmas. I can see the possibility of a long running series emerging, but I'll stop at the three for now.
I have some stand alones bubbling that I've sketched in outline that I really need to get down on paper - and out of my head.
If readers want more from the trilogy - I'll write more! I love the characters so it would be my pleasure :)
I'm becoming rather partial to them as well, Bo!
Ignite wrote: "I'm becoming rather partial to them as well, Bo!"Thanks Ignite....I can only hope that continues! :)
Not quite what I write next, but I've realised the weather I experience as the book is written knocks on to the weather in the book.So Flames of the City was written (or most of it) during quite a bad winter. One with the publisher now was written during last summer so there's a fairish of mud and raid
The current one I'm working on has people in body armour sweltering in a marshy river delta
Does anyone see this sort of carry over from real life to the book.
Jim wrote: "Not quite what I write next, but I've realised the weather I experience as the book is written knocks on to the weather in the book.So Flames of the City was written (or most of it) during quite ..."
That's really interesting - I'd never really thought about it before. But, as it happens, my first one is set in December.....and I wrote it during the winter months. The book I'm writing now is set in the summer! But I don't remember consciously making those choices, so now you've really got me thinking :)
The book I'm working on is set in the middle of winter, and I'm having a real hard time of it in all this heat!
Me too. Am trying to write a wet & chilly February at the mo. It's really disconcerting.
The next book will be set somewhere more tropical, but by the time I'm writing that it'll be cold and wet!
Jim wrote: "Not quite what I write next, but I've realised the weather I experience as the book is written knocks on to the weather in the book.So Flames of the City was written (or most of it) during quite ..."
Yeah that happens to me as well. I think also I tend to be happier in the summer so whatever I'm writing is a bit happier.
sweltering in a marshy river delta you say?i said to Dave the other day that anyone who read a book or watches a film set here should be forced to sit in a room with a humidifier and thermostat cranked right up to get the full effect.
Remember to insist that they're wearing bodyarmour and a helmet as well Patti :-)Ideally meals would be served at irregular intervals and at any moment someone might start taking potshots at them
Weather is easy. For cold I watch the Day After Tomorrow, for bad weather I watch The Perfect Storm, For heat I watch Ice Cold In Alex ... If I can't feel it after that then I give up.
Flight of the Phoenix (the Jimmy Stewart version) is pretty good for heat too. :)
If you're anything like me you have a load of ideas to choose from, perhaps some you thought of years ago while others have come to you just recently. Do you go for something in a completely different genre to what you've just written? Do you love writing about a character so much you want to write a sequel? Are you influenced by what you're reading at the moment?
I've just finished a novel so I'm deciding what to write next. I've narrowed it down to either a pirate story, a fairytale, or a sequel to Angelic Hellfire. I tend to be influenced by what I'm reading at the moment, and I've been reading A Song of Ice and Fire so I'll probably choose the fairytale, but it'd be interesting to hear about your methods.