By Greta Boris //
This is a cautionary tale.
Once upon a time there was a writer who got a great idea. She planned to write a loosely linked series of stand-alone books all set in the same world with many of the same characters and tie them together by theme—The Seven Deadly Sins.
I wish I could say she wrote them with joy and ease and lived happily ever after.
I am, of course, the protagonist of this story. I did find a publisher for the series, so it was a pretty good idea. And as you know if you’ve been following our latest blog series, I’m now writing the last book, The Peril of Pride. So I have written them. However, they weren’t penned without plenty of angst and pencil chewing.
One of the things Megan and I say on the homepage of The Author Wheel is: Between us we have over 20 years of writing and publishing experience. We’ve made the mistakes, so you don’t have to.
In this post, I’ll share the 3 biggest mistakes I made in writing The Seven Deadly Sins series.
Before I jump into that, however, here’s an excerpt from our book PUBLISH – Take Charge of Your Author Career dealing with the various types of series:
Greta took a class from romance author Lisa Wells on writing a series. According to her, there are four basic types: the really big book, the linked sequential, the linked stand-alone, and the loosely connected stand-alone.
An example of the really big book series would be the Lord of the Rings trilogy by Tolkien. Book one begins Frodo’s story, book two continues it and book three wraps it up. If it wouldn’t break your arm to hold, the entire trilogy could be one really big book.
Jan Karon’s Mitford series is an example of a linked sequential series. In this series, there is an overarching storyline that moves from book to book. If you read them out of order, you will wonder who certain characters are and when so and so got married. But each novel also has a plot of its own that wraps up at its end.
The linked stand-alone series is the most popular of the mystery and crime genres. Think Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple books, or Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series. Each story is complete. We can read them out of order. What links them is the protagonist.
Finally, there are the loosely connected stand-alone novels. In these, each story is complete and has its own protagonist. What connects them is the world, and the cast of characters. An example of this is Tana French’s Murder Squad books. All her protagonists work for the Irish Murder Squad. Each story is a separate case, solved by its own detective, but the detectives are connected through the world she has created.
Now, back to me.
Mistake #1
I was so excited about starting my loosely connected stand-alone books, I didn’t stop to think about how to roll my series out. In my mind, the only thing I needed to know before I started typing was the plot of the book I was currently writing and my continuity rules:
- Each story would take place in Orange County, California.
- Each story would feature a different female protagonist.
- The protagonist for the next book would appear in the book before.
- There would be a character who spoke in first person who would remain a mystery for at least part of the novel.
- Each book would explore the theme of the title sin in unexpected ways.
What else did I need?
I didn’t realize that series, like single titles, have an arc. Or they should have. About halfway through The Sanctity of Sloth, I saw that the stories were taking on a more philosophical tone. That’s fine, but if I wanted to wax more philosophical I should have had A Pinch of Gluttony appear earlier in the series. It’s hard to be completely serious about gluttony. For some reason, it’s a funnier sin. Who knew?
Solution
Consider the arc of your series before you begin. Even in a series of stand-alone novels, you will have a starting point, a midpoint, and an end point. What’s the journey you want to bring your readers on? Do you want to hook them with thrills and chills, bring them gradually into a darker place, then return them to a happier world at the end? Plan your story lineup carefully.
Mistake #2
I never thought about how much information I would give away from book to book. You have to be careful what your characters say, especially when you’re writing mystery/suspense. They can be gossipy. If my new protagonist is friendly with the protagonist of the prior story, she knows the resolution of that mystery. Since my stories can be read out of order, I can’t allow her to spill the beans.
However, if the characters don’t say anything about the events in the earlier novel, it’s not realistic. If Rosie was almost killed in book four and her best friend never acknowledges that in book five, it makes my fictional world seem very two-dimensional.
Solution
Again, plan, plan, plan. During the plotting phases of each individual story, highlight the characters who know about the things that happened in prior books. List the things they can and can’t say. Think about where you’ll fit those conversations and how you’ll end them if they’re heading toward spoilers. I had to have a character in The Key of Greed collapse in the middle of a conversation in order to interrupt my protagonist before she said too much about A Pinch of Gluttony. It was a close call!
Mistake #3
When I began the Sins, I never thought about teasing the next book at the end of the one I was writing. This was a big mistake, especially since I was writing stand-alones. Why should a reader follow through? What would draw them onward to the next in series?
Another problem that occurs from this lack of forethought is that characters’ jobs, who they’re dating, and where they live may be published before you write the next book. What if none of those things work for your future storyline?
Too bad.
I’ve often had to make things work in ways that were much more difficult than if I’d thought it through before I sent the prior manuscript off to the publisher.
Solution
Plot the next in series at least partially before you end your current manuscript. Know which characters are going to do what even if you don’t know all the details. Your writing life will be easier, and you’ll be able to add a few teasers into the final pages to create curiosity about what will happen next.
I’m currently reading How to Write a Series by Sara Rosset. It’s an excellent book and will definitely help me set myself up for success with my next series. One of the things she recommends is deciding in advance if you’ll be writing a series with a single protagonist and if that character will have a robust or flat arc. That is a topic for another day, however.
Want more in this blog series? Visit https://authorwheel.com and take a free Author Personality Quiz while you’re there.
GRETA BORIS is the author of The 7 Deadly Sins. Ordinary women. Unexpected Evil. Taut psychological suspense that exposes the dark side of sunny Southern California. Her stories have been called atmospheric, twisty, and unputdownable. She lives in Mission Viejo and describes her work (and her life) as an O.C. housewife meets Dante’s Inferno. You can visit her at http://gretaboris.com.