Early in my writing career, I took a lot of world-building workshops. At the time, I was writing contemporary romances set in quirky small towns, so I would carefully build and populate my world. Then, I would turn in the manuscript and start all over again. It took years before I thought, “Wait … what if I stayed in one fictional place and explored more of its stories before moving on?”
Part of this was because my publisher only committed to one title at a time for my first few contracts, and I unintentionally fell into a single-book mentality. The other issue was that most of the book series I’d read growing up fell into two categories—either sweeping fantasy/sci-fi sagas that took place over multiple novels or tales of one main protagonist who solved a new mystery in each book. My resulting idea of what a series meant was far too narrow.
From intricate overlapping plots that require complex timelines to loosely connected events in a shared community with character cameos, a series can be about anything you want. The question is, do you want one?
Cautions and warnings and risks, oh my!
So, let’s get the bad news out of the way. There are drawbacks to an ongoing succession of connected books. Some of these risks are technical, such as the increasing probability for continuity errors, while others are mental/emotional. Readers may be intimidated by starting a series with titles in the double digits. Or readers might be wary of getting invested in a series without a proven conclusion. There’s also a danger of burnout for both author and audience.
“Writing a series is like coming back to old friends,” Barry Reese, a pulp action writer who has written 14 volumes of The Adventures of Lazarus Gray, said. “There’s a certain comfort level. But it can also be a detriment in that you don’t want to start repeating yourself. How do you consistently push the narrative forward without losing what made the series popular in the first place?”
Urban fantasy author Seressia Glass takes an approach that helps keep her plots and characters unique while maximizing the world she’s built. “When I started my Shadowchasers series, I knew I wanted to populate it with all sorts of beings and possibly do side stories. One way to get the reader interested in these is to introduce the minor character in the main story and give them a compelling subplot. I introduced two characters in Shadow Fall who had their own short story in an anthology.
“Another way is to create a secondary series or even a different genre set in the same universe.” She added that her original main protagonists appear in these stories, but through the perspective of new characters. “Because these stories are not part of the main series, it’s important to not confuse the reader. While the story title will be ‘shadow’ something to tie it to my world, I differentiate by adding A Shadowchasers Paranormal Romance as a subtitle on the covers.”
In addition to spin-off stories, another way to keep a series fresh is to include different author voices. The Bay Corners Cozy Mysteries series includes stories from three collaborating authors—Berta Platas, Nancy Knight, and Maureen Hardegree. Working together provides a lot of benefits, but it triples the potential for dropped threads and continuity errors that every series faces.
“With a multiple-author series, three things will make or break the cohesiveness,” Hardegree said. “One is communication among the authors participating in the series. It’s key. Second is a well-maintained and detailed concordance that includes physical appearance and aspects of characters such as emotional reactions, tics, often-used words or phrases, etc. Third is to maintain a timeline, not just in the concordance, but also in real time while drafting each scene in the next story. This way other authors writing in the series and the person editing the series can catch chronological discrepancies and resolve them before the book goes to print.”
Even if you are writing solo, detailed notes of characters and plot events will be a huge future help if your plans for a standalone book evolve.
Debut author Ann Michelle Harris wrote a fairytale retelling of “The Snow Queen” in a medieval-like setting. “I love my lead characters so much, they are the perfect balance of trauma and heroism,” Harris said. “But shortly after I began writing the original manuscript, I fell in love with one of the side characters so I knew they would need their own story. Since North is set in a world of four compass kingdoms, I decided to have four stories spotlighting different settings, different characters in the ensemble, and drawing inspiration from four different fairytales. But with so many possible themes, the series may expand to more adventures.”
With attention to detail, careful balance, and flexibility on where their series might lead, authors can overcome obstacles and reap the benefits of writing a series.
Time for the good news
There’s obviously nothing wrong with writing standalone novels—some stories are more effective that way. However, should you be interested in writing a series, there are worthy rewards for your trouble. Personally, I find it gratifying to jump into a new manuscript with an already working knowledge of my characters and community from previous books. This added boost of momentum makes a real difference in my productivity.
A series also creates momentum with fans. Readers in general look forward to new books by beloved authors, but a series creates an escalated level of anticipation, especially online. Readers start to speculate on what will happen in future books while sharing their favorite moments from the books that have already been released. Expectation can lead to pre-orders and positive word of mouth for a book even before it is published.
A quick word of caution, though, is to think carefully about where to end each book in an ongoing series. A gasp-worthy cliffhanger, if done well, can heighten expectation … but, if done poorly, can leave readers angry and unfulfilled. No one wants to spend time and money to read an unfinished book.
“I prefer novels with a beginning, middle, and end, even if the ending is twisty or leaves some matters unresolved,” Harris said. “My goal for North was to provide a satisfying ending and reasonable closure for the primary plot but with a few unexpected twists to stimulate the reader’s appetite for more and to set up the new conflict for the next story and characters.”
Beyond word of mouth, writing a series can make an author’s promotional efforts easier. Customized promo items or merch can spotlight the overall series so that it becomes more timeless and doesn’t become obsolete with each new release. T-shirts and book bags that mention fictional towns, worlds, coffee shops, and mystical academies have become common. It is a special kind of writing magic than an author can build a pretend community and then build a very real community around it.
You may ultimately decide that a series is not for you, and you can have a successful career with individual books that do not connect. However, if you decide to write a series, remember that there are many different types and countless approaches. The only limit is your imagination.
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Tanya Michaels is the award-winning author of One Night with a Cowboy and the upcoming rom-com Anything Hugh Can Do. She is a popular event speaker and the writer of numerous nonfiction articles. She occasionally remembers that she has social media long enough to post a book update or pictures of her rescue cats.