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1. Is my genre suited to a series? Genre needs to be one of your first considerations when it comes to making this kind of choice. Not every genre is suited to a series, but some are practically made for it – in fact, there are a few genres in which standalone novels are actually quite rare.
My aim in this essay is to point you towards the diagnostic tools for fixing a joke or gag that is falling flat, and also the fundamental idea that underpins creating your own joke from scratch.
- Genre
- Character
- Central Conflict
- Setting
- Plan It Out
- Bonus Tip!
Pick a genre that can sustain your characters over several books. Some genres are tailor-made for serialization—mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, are all good choices. Think Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone series, A through Y, Octavia Butler’s Patternmaster series, Walter Mosley’s Leonid McGill series, Robert B. Parker’s Spenser. You want a genre th...
Series are all about your characters. These are the book people your readers are coming back to see. They must be compelling, unique, and engaging to such a degree that readers really care about them, worry about their troubles, and want to see them get what they need. You start building this connection on page one of book one. If readers don’t car...
Keep conflict going. Fiction is fueled by conflict. No conflict, no story; no story, and your readers will move on to someone else’s book. There should be conflict everywhere. On every page, your characters want and need something they cannot get. This is the push and pull necessary to get from page one to the end. But with a series, you are settin...
Let’s do a little exercise. I’ll toss out a character name and you match that character to the city they’re from. Easy Rawlins. Spenser. Sam Spade. V.I. Warshawski. How’d you do? If you answered L.A., Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago, you did quite well. So, what does that say about how important setting is in a series? Your setting should be as ...
At least this is the prevailing wisdom on writing a series from a lot of talented writers who should know. The idea is to decide well in advance where you will put all those wonderful character beats. Planners then know, for example, that in book three, chapter ten, their main character’s central trauma will finally be revealed. Uh-huh. I can see t...
Do. Not. Panic. I know you want to, you’re likely panicking now. Breathe. You ramped yourself up to writing one book, just one, and it was a tough climb. Now they (they know who they are) want another just like it. Another. Seriously, breathe. You worry you’re out of ideas. You are not. You think all you had in you was that one book. I beg to diffe...
May 8, 2020 · When done right, it can be an incredibly effective marketing strategy for indie authors. So grab that mind-boggling, spine-tingling, rip-roaring story idea you hope to continue writing about for years to come, and let’s jump into the basics of serial writing. 1. Determine the type of series that best suits your story.
- Know what makes writing series different. Writing a series is different to writing a standalone book for a number of reasons: Series have multi-novel continuity (this separates a book series from a book cycle) – characters and/or settings, and/or conflicts return.
- Choose a central conflict that sustains interest in your series. From Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache mystery series to Rowling’s fantasy epic Harry Potter, intriguing series have conflicts and characters whose development span multiple books.
- Create a fictional world readers will long to return to. Readers of Rowling’s fantasy series are eager to return to her fictional world because: It is rich in imaginative detail: Rowling thinks of every detail, from how bank vaults are guarded (by dragons) to the woods used to make magical wands and their properties.
- Outline your series in advance. If you tend not to plot usually, this can work for a novel. When you write a novel series, however, an outline is especially useful, as it helps you retain a bird’s eye view.
Sep 16, 2021 · Part of what makes a good series as opposed to simply a collection of books with the same characters is a developing plot line, or even several plotlines. The corruption in the Surete in the Gamache stories and the development of Clara’s art, and the implications for Peter and others.
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Nov 3, 2023 · The 53 Best Book Series of All Time With new books being published every single day, figuring out your next read can be a daunting task. Lucky for you, we’ve created a list of the 53 best book series of all time — ranging from fantasy and science fiction to romance and thriller — to keep you occupied for days (or, in some cases, weeks or ...
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