how does a series work?

[shamguy4]

So my book turned into a series.
And after writing the first few chapters of my first book over and over I decided to stop and make sure I had the whole book figured out.

I now have 90% of the brainstorming done. i also have wondered about the rest of the series and whats to come. I know my ultimate ending and I have an idea for the second book.
Should I figure this all out now fully? Should I know how many books there will be?
Or should I just focus on the getting the first one down on paper!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Get the first down first. Reaching the end is a skill of itself. Get two down another and then tackle three.... i have yet to manage the third in my series. (But it's planned and has some scenes drafted.)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

As you write and revise the first book, ideas of what will happen in the second and third book may come to you. Scribble them down, and look at them again later when you have the first book about where you want it, to see if they still apply.

 

[SleepyDormouse]

I have been wondering the same thing, as my story is too big to fit into one book of middle grade size (which is what I think it is).

The things is, series that work for me often seem to be more cohesive than one book after the next. They have a plot that flows through the books. And I don't want to end up in a situation where I want to write about things in book 2 or 3 that I should have mentioned in book 1.

But then again, even writing one book would be an achievement, so maybe I am reaching too high.

At the moment I have written about 2/3 of book one (though I too am stuck re-writing the first chapters over and over!), and have lots of idea's of how the later book/books will follow, so perhaps that is all I need.

I think I would need to have a much more cohesive plan for the remaining books before sending to agents etc, if i ever get that far!

 

[reiver33]

I had a start and a finish but couldn't see how the two were connected given how the story progressed. So I set the ending aside and finished one novella, started another, but hit the same problem. I really, really wanted to use the original ending (I'd been carrying it around in my head for ages and it was so clear, like a piece from a film) so I now have the third novella, each between 30-40k.

I've largely given up on the traditional multi-book series. Where it was a single narrative arc that proved too large for one volume, that's fine. More recently they seem to have become of; write one, see if it sells, then write another - an open-ended process until sales fall off. Or maybe I'm just being cynical...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Like Teresa says, you can always go back and tweak if there is a key plot point. (Though not, admittedly, after you either sell or publish it.) I've found that even when something happens that wasn't planned initially, it fits with the word because it's broad enough to take quirks. Plus, if it's part of the natural character journey things do happen, but they should be logical for that character.

For instance, I have a character who is revealed as bisexual in book 2. I had no idea as I was writing book 1 that he might be (or rather, I had a late inkling). I went back to book 1, foreshadowed it very, very gently (a couple of lines). His sexuality is not a plot point -- if it had been, I'd have planned it at the start -- but now it's there, it affects some of the plot, if that makes sense.

I think the key thing to have in your mind is what the overall arc for the series is, and then a seperate one for each book. So, eg. GRRM's overall arc is the coming to age of whoever is fire and ice, and we all have thoughts on who that might be, and that's the central point of the seven books. But book one is, primarily, about the Stark family's arc, and it wraps up on a cliffhanger but the threads presented in that book are resolved for the arc of that particular book -- we know the family are scattered, we know what quest they are all on, Ned's story is... um... resolved?

Re sending it to agents, if you are pitching a trilogy, at some point, if anyone is interested at all, you'll be asked for a trilogy synopsis. I found that hard, but in doing it I now have a better idea of what I'm doing with book three.