My Path

How did I get here? What breadcrumbs led me to this place where writing is what I do?

An avid reader from an early age, my reading preferences, like many young readers, had much to do with short adventures. Such as Donald J. Sobol's Encyclopedia Brown series. That young lad's mysteries led me to longer stories with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. I'd read and re-read from my school library a shortened and illustrated version of Walter Farley's Black Stallion, but when I found the full novel I was in love. I read, no...I devoured all of his Black Stallion books, delighted to see how Alec and his magnificent horse dealt with a new problem. The spin-off Island Stallion series was just as good. Then I needed something else, a new fix.

Enter the genre fantasy.

I read the lot of Weis & Hickman's Dungeons and Dragons books and their Darksword trilogy and Rose of the Prophet trilogy,  Piers Anthony's Blue Adept books, David Eddings' Malloreon series, Steven Brust's Jhereg series, his stand alones To Reign in Hell and Cowboy Fengs Space Bar and Grill. There were many, many others. I read EVERYTHING.

The problem was...the boys got the best adventures. The men bore the brunt of the danger. Sure there were some interesting and strong women in Weis and Hickman's tales, but they weren't the lead.

I didn't see myself represented in these books.

Then I found Jennifer Roberson's Sword Dancer.

 

 

As I understand it, at the time, Ms. Roberson was not able to write the story from the female leads POV and expect to get it sold...so she wrote it from the male lead's POV. Del was smart, strong, able, and determined. She was my hero during very formative years.

 

Though I had always dabbled in writing, this was when I began in earnest, and I wrote for me. To be honest, the Dragonlance art of Larry Elmore and Clyde Caldwell (and others) had as much to do with my imagination spring-boarding into my own stories as the novels I had read.

 

Then this whole Urban Fantasy thing happened, with female leads in abundance...and I was able to join the ranks of my favorite authors and have mass market paperbacks of my own on the bookshelves of book stores and chain stores alike.

Series Theories

What elements make for a successful series? I'D SURE LIKE TO FIND OUT, cause ya know? Neither of my series actually got to BE serieses (what is the plural of series??) to completion.

<RING RING>
Hello?
<Ms. Burnard? Bitter calling. Line two.>
Right. Right.

Ehem. Pardon me. Just gonna have this Snickers.

Ah. Where were we?
Series. Perhaps we can elucidate the elusive nature of the beasts by examining those aspects which deterred us from reading through other authors' works.

1. Top-That-Itis: Dreadful disease that fells many a promising series by forcing an author to reach deeper and deeper into the well of vast improbability for conflict. Some theories suggest that this tragic disease is what leads to that horrific event known as "Jumping the Shark."
2. Character Intellect Disorder: Characters afflicted with Intellect Disorder are easy to identify. Their authors spend great effort telling, and possibly, showing you how smart a character is only to have the character spend the rest of the series acting in a manner utterly inconsistent with that intellect. To put not too fine a point upon it, the character acts as if he or she has been clubbed suddenly stupid. This disorder may or may not accompany symptoms of Top-That-Itis.
3. Murky Motivation Mania: Some theorists contend that Character Intellect Disorder is nothing more than Murky Motivation Mania in action. *I* disagree, but the hair we split is fine, indeed. Any character can be forced to act out of character if properly motivated to do so. IE: a gun held to my head might indeed induce me to cluck like a chicken when normally, I would not. Anyone claiming the contrary is a fowl and dirty prevaricator. You see what I did there, yes? Ehem. However. One assumes that the moment I've dispatched the individual holding the gun to my head, I would revert to my true, uptig...er...sober mien. Therein lies the difference between Character Intellect Disorder and Murky Motivation Mania. The disorder appears as if a light switch had been flipped: Smart/Not. Mania manifests when a character acts out of character for no apparent reason and then just as mysteriously, flips back to acting as he or she always had.
4. Canon Fodder: Canon: A rule or law enacted by a competent authority. Alas, what mind among us can comprehend what madness besets an author who contradicts the rules of his or her creation as set out in the series as it first appeared? None of us. Not a one. We can only shake our heads in sad wonder and hope that Disney will redeem the franchise.

Come, my fellow series theorists. Regale me with your theories for what makes a series unreadable and that which makes a series eminently readable. I'll share the Snickers...

ESSENTIAL ELEMENT FOR WRITING A SUCCESSFUL SERIES

by Linda Robertson

THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENT FOR WRITING A SUCCESSFUL SERIES is, in my humble opinion, <insert drumroll here>

...a character who grabs our interest with both hands.

You know, someone whose emotions cause us to keep turning pages.

"Emotions?" you ask.

Yes. Emotions.

In an article that I highly recommend (and which of course supports my statement), Martha Alderson, aka the Plot Whisperer, says:
"Moviegoers and readers identify with stories through the characters. The most powerful way to reach an audience is through the characters' emotions. For only when we connect with the characters on an emotional level, does the interaction become deep and meaningful. Well-written scenes that include characters' emotions allow the audience to viscerally take part in the story and bond with the characters." LINK HERE Go read it. I'll wait....

The character feels something about their situation that defines that character; even their apathy tells us something. Their actions convey to us the core of their emotions. Their reactions to other characters, to a new situation, to someone else's display of emotions --or lack thereof-- and the words they speak divulge to us as a whole something more than the sum of the actual words on the page.

Why? Because we feel and react, too. Our experience, and the experiences shared with us by our families and friends and loved ones are all a part of our lives and influence us as we grow and mature across the arc of our lives.

And using that as a convenient segue...

Your series character must be able to A.) maintain an interesting arc or B.) have an endless stream of storylines and options in his/her/its life. Or both.

In The 3 Types of Character Arc – Change, Growth and Fall HERE Veronica Sicoe talks about character arcs that stray from the standard Heroes Journey, arcs called: the Change Arc, the Growth Arc, the Shift Arc and the Fall Arc.

Each of the installments in a series in part forms the large "whole" of the character's arc, like the stones in the picture.

In what ways are you preparing your character for the arc? Or are you letting their story prepare you? What forces are at work beyond the control of the character, forces that will inevitably force difficulties upon her, ones that she, where you have placed her in the opening of your tale, cannot anticipate, ones leading her to places she cannot imagine going?

Tell me those questions waft like a seductive scent under the nose of your curious and inspiration-seeking writer brain...

The One Essential Element for Writing a Successful Series

I'm up in Maine with friends and family, celebrating my birthday, along with my aunt's and stepfather's. Here's my celebratory lemon-drop martini (of course).

Fortunately our list-makers here at the Bordello have chosen a one-hit list for this week's topic: The most essential element for writing a successful series.

Of course, if anyone could perfectly ID the *one* perfect essential element for writing a successful series, we would probably all do that thing. So these things are a bit of a crapshoot, a bit of hand-waving and a dollop of black magic. We know what things tend to make a series stand out and rise above, but doing those things doesn't guarantee a successful series.

That said, I spend a fair amount of time reading other people's successful series and studying what they do. If asked to identify the essential element that keeps me fascinated and clicking that auto-buy (as I have been) I'd say this:

A hero and heroine who are richly detailed with continuing and compelling character arcs.

I tried to compose that without too many generalizations, but I'll break down the components.

Hero and Heroine

This is me, but I love the polarity of male and female, the push and pull of a relationship, hopefully romantic, preferably sexual. This can also be male/male or female/female or multiples, naturally, but I like how the male/female relationship represents the two major genders of the human race. It creates many possibilities, which is key.

Richly Detailed

The more complex, real and deep your characters are, the more room there is to develop them over time. Layer in the pain, the angst, the wounds that take forever to heal and there's plenty of story to keep telling.

Continuing and Compelling Arcs

The characters have to continue to change. It's not enough to have huge transformation and transcendence in book one - they have to face challenges and change in EVERY book. They can maybe backslide, but I advise against it as that creates a sense of frustration of hopelessness in me as a reader. If that happens, then they need to *really* surge ahead to much farther along than before the backslide. Overall, I think they need to continue to grow in their abilities with each book. This creates the reward that keeps me coming back for even more. However, it also should be clear from this that the characters must have a long way to go from the very beginning, thus the richly detailed depth and angst.

Two series that do this *really* well? The Kate Daniels books by Ilona Andrews and the In Death books by J.D. Robb.

Cheers!

Whatever DID Happen to That Series??

So, this is what happened to me over the weekend and why KAK stepped in to take over my post on Sunday. It's pretty rare to find places without internet or cell service these days, but this place we stayed on the Mogollon Ridge near the Gila Wilderness is one. Thanks for the emergency help, KAK!

As KAK introduced Sunday, this week's topic is about how to handle the cancellation of a series.

This has happened to several friends of mine. One is a sister Word Whore, so I'll let her tell her own story, if she chooses to. But here are three case studies of how this happened to friends of mine.

- One gal received a two-book deal from a major NYC publisher, via her very high-profile agent, with an option for the third book. The books were planned as a trilogy. Before the first book even hit the shelves, the acquiring editor left and the series was orphaned. The editor who grudgingly took up the slack barely looked at book 2. Though the first two books did very well and gained a substantial following - AND though book 2 ended on a cliffhanger, as planned all along - the series had no champion at the publisher and the option book, book 3, was declined. The author took book 3 to a primarily digital publisher, who did a lovely job of matching the covers. But there was a delay in producing the third book and readers, especially those who had to wait more than a year for the print version, were not pleased.

- Another gal sold two, two-book deals to a mid-sized but reputable press. Both were planned as longer series, at least for three. After the contract, the press was acquired by a major NYC publisher and the option books for both series were declined. Though readers have asked for more in those series, the author hasn't wanted to face the gauntlet of dealing with character/world reversion of rights and has pursued other projects instead.

- Another friend sold a three-book deal to a major NYC publisher, so she was able to complete the trilogy with them as she envisioned it. However, the original acquiring editor passed the first book on to a junior editor, who then left the publishing house. As with the first story here, another editor grudgingly took on book 2 and then a third took book 3. The option book was declined, thus ending more books in that series, unless the author revisits her rights and so forth.

I've been fortunate that this hasn't happened to me. Part of this is because, as I seem to do with most things, I kind of took the crooked path. My website makes it look like I have eight series at this point. That's kind of misleading because the OTHER WORKS and FAIRYTALE EROTICA "series" are really just genre categories that my website designer made up, just to have a place to put things.

See how I am? Defying easy shelving even on my own website!

That leaves six "series," none of which ran the risk of that ugly cancellation problem. Here's why:

Blood Currency

Book one in this series is Feeding the Vampire. Very short. It started as kind of a wayward idea and, when an Ellora's Cave editor asked me for something, I polished it up and sent her that. She wanted another, preferably linked, so I wrote Hunting the Siren, which takes place in the same world, but with different characters. My editor wanted to give it a series title, so she asked me to propose a third book, because those are the EC rules - no series title until you have three books. I did and we picked "Blood Currency." I've never written that third book, mainly because I had other contracted deadlines and then my editor left, so now I don't have much incentive. If anything, readers seem to want more of the characters in Feeding the Vampire, so maybe I'll do that some day.

Covenant of Thorns

First I wrote Rogue's Pawn and eventually sold it to Carina Press. When I originally conceived of the series, I was a newbie and foolish with it, thinking it could be as many as seven books. It took so long to sell that book that I wrote a couple of others in the mean time - novels in totally new series - one of which became The Mark of the Tala (see under The Twelve Kingdoms below). Then two surprising things happened: Rogue's Pawn finally sold and readers seemed to feel it ended on a cliffhanger. NOT what I had intended. But I wanted to continue the story, so that part was easy. Knowing better by then, and certain my Carina Press editor would not like the idea of six more books to finish - plus knowing of my case studies above - I sketched out two more books in that series, to make a complete trilogy, and sold them to Carina on proposal. The second, Rogue's Possession, came out last year and the third, Rogue's Paradise, comes out September 8. I'd like to write more in this world, but have no particular plans right now.

Master of the Opera

This is a serial novel I did with Kensington and not really a series at all. I wrote it all at once and it was entirely in the can before the first installment was published. No concerns about cancellation there.

Falling Under

This is a new series of novel-length erotic romances and the first, Going Under, just came out last week! I sold these to Carina on proposal and contracted for three thematically connected books. No concerns about overall plot arc, no worries about cancellation there.

Facets of Passion

These are four erotic romance novellas I did with Carina, also thematically connected with no overall plot arc. I had planned to keep going with them, but they morphed into the novel-length erotic romances of the Falling Under series (above) instead.

The Twelve Kingdomsa

When I sold book one, The Mark of the Tala, to Kensington, I had the next two books sketched out. With those and the completed book one, my agent got a three-book deal for me. I've just turned in the third book. We'll have to talk about what the option book will be, but readers are already asking for a fourth book (Dafne's story, for those wondering). Maybe? We shall see!

Series Plotting

The Persephone Alcmedi series has six books so far. It was not planned at the outset.

In fact, I wrote up this awesome Johnny guy…6’2” leather wearin’ tattooed and pierced rock n roll bad boy while at the airport in New Orleans waiting for my flight home. Then I had that shrimp po’boy and tried to figure out who his ideal woman would be, yanno, since he couldn’t have me.

Persephone hit the page, took over, and never thought twice about it.

By book five, I was able to start telling his story from his POV. He’d been very patient.

And no, I don't recommend po'boys as a plotting mechanism.

Lemme back up...and address the topic a bit clearer.

When the contract came for VICIOUS CIRCLE, it was for a three book deal. Color me surprised. No agent, no warning, fairy godmother smacked me upside the head with a dream come true. (Thank you thank you thank you.) I’d of course tossed some ideas around in my head, daring to think about it but not really committing to it. Afraid to jinx it and all…

 

And then I had to come up with two more novel ideas, and tell the publishers about them.

Let me share a secret here. I can’t do short stories. Really. I envy those who can conceive an idea and work it open to close, concisely, done, a short story. When I try, I get lost in details and other ideas and poof, a novel. It gets deeper and longer and I don’t know how to stop. Beginnings, middles, and ends take time. Time to explore and discover. And I LOVE that discovery.

So to have someone tell me to figure out two more whole books at once?

Gasoline on my fire.

Seph accomplishes this, then that, then that, and then THAT! But how? Oh, she has to do this and this. Then that and that. Ideas have no trouble finding me. How can I make that harder to achieve? Who can stand in her way? What does it cost her? him? them? How do I make all that matter more?

If you write, you totally get that I’m sure.

Guess what? I plotted eight. Loosely, but eight.

And then I sat down to write.

Book two, Hallowed Circle, was not part of the intended arc. AT ALL.

Creative juice? I’ll have a double, thanks. And shake that bitch up.

So I want to write nine.  O.o

—Insert industry going fickle on me—

—Insert desire to show I can write more than urban fantasy—

—Insert the reworking of an old sword and sorcery fantasy— 

 

I’m nearly done with it now…but I’m pushing 150,ooo words.

At what point is an intervention necessary? 

 

(And I'll get back to Seph & Co. soon!)

I'm hardwired to plot big, to plot series with the overarching plot, and the novel to novel steps that get you there. I ask questions. And keep asking. What if? How? Now who's going to stand in the way? Why? Who's going to help? Who wants to help but can't? What are the outside forces beyond all control doing? Who represents that? What little things can mimic all this stuff? (Like a dying houseplant or a leaky faucet?) What outsider looking in can say something that throws the opposite emotion into play for the main character? Would that have a good effect?

I'm like an annoyingly curious and relentless child, so my advice is: Question everything. The answers will become your story.

How a Pantser Plans a Series

This week at the Bordello we'll be comparing notes on Making a Series: Plotting and planning a series of books.

It's an interesting topic, especially for the girl who doesn't preplot or plan much at all. Over time, though, I've come to understand that I do have more of a plan than I think I do.

You pretty much have to, to write a trilogy or other series. I've finished writing two trilogies now - A Covenant of Thorns (CoT) and The Twelve Kingdoms (12K) - both with very strong overall arcs that required all three books to tell. In both cases, I did NOT know what the overall story would be when I started the first book. In both cases, I did have a sense that the story I had in mind would take much longer than a single book.

I'm not saying you should try this at home, but this is how I did it, for each.

Core Scene

For each series, I started with the first book - Rogue's Pawn (RP) and The Mark of the Tala (MotT), respectively - and wrote each towards a core scene. In Rogue's Pawn it was the initial dream of The Black Dog and I wrote towards the scene of SPOILER *Gwynn kissing Liam between the tents* END SPOILER. In The Mark of the Tala, I knew the scene of SPOILER *Andi hiding in the castle from the evil lurking outside, her sister swearing to protect her while people died and she knew she had to give herself to the monster to end it* END SPOILER.

And that's seriously all I knew about either story or series when I started laying words down.

Discovering Other Key Characters

Alert readers familiar with the series will note that in neither case did I have a clear idea of the heroes. In fact, Rogue took me entirely by surprise when he walked into the room and threw everything upside-down. (Which is entirely like him, I see now in retrospect.) In 12K, I knew there would be the one sister, but not so much that there would be three and that the overall story would be as much about them and their relationship as anything else.

In both cases, discovering these other characters - who took shape and came to life as I wrote - was what determined the overall series arc.

For CoT, the relationship between Rogue and Gwynn drove the series arc. Though there are other considerations for her - gaining mastery as a sorceress, finding her own agency, and fighting Titania's plans - it's really Gwynn's bargain with Rogue to bear his firstborn child, and their tangled emotions around this, that forms the spine of the series.

For 12K, once Andi's sisters, Amelia and Ursula, took shape, it became clear that the trilogy would be formed of each sister's story, in that order. The way MotT ended pretty much dictates that the main story thread falls to Amelia next, in The Tears of the Rose, and that the final conflict belongs to Ursula in The Talon of the Hawk.

The First Act Dictates the Conclusion

I write using the three-act structure, as such: Act 1 Climax: 25%, Midpoint: 50%, Act 2 Climax: 75%, Act 3 Climax: 90%. What this means is that all the stakes in the story are set up by the end of Act 1. The remaining 3/4 of the story are all resolving the problems set up in the first act.

In a series, this overall structure still applies. If you apply the metric to the entire series, it should become clear that there is an Act 1 Climax that occurs somewhere in book 1 that sets up the stakes for the series as a whole. In CoT, the bargain between Rogue and Gwynn and her subsequent suffering drives the conclusion finally reached in book 3, Rogue's Paradise. In 12K, the political events set off by what happens to Andi - and how they change her sister's lives - are what lead directly to the final conflict in The Talon of the Hawk.

Filling in the Detail

Thus, as far as plotting and planning, I do have a general sense of what the major beats and climactic events will be. More or less. I probably have a better sense of the impact on the characters than the details of the events themselves. Those things I discover as I go along.

It's definitely true for me, however, that setting up that first 25%, both within a book and for the series overall, is what gives me a solid trajectory to see the story through.

Plus a bit of black magic.

Once Upon A time I Wrote A Series in Longhand

Actually, I've written two series - one in junior high school, "Tales of the Space Dragon,"  which a very observant reader will notice might have some resemblance to the old Tom Corbett Space Cadet books. But my series vastly expanded on that limited concept and I involved the extended families of my characters all across the galaxy, as well as introducing new characters with each installment and creating one gigantic HEA somewhere around Book Eleven (lots of marriages and kids). Although written in my very best cursive (wow, I can't even print legibly these days), this series will of course never see the light of day. I can't even reread them. I did, however, drop a nod to the Space Dragon, which was the name of the space ship, into my best selling "Wreck of the Nebula Dream" last year.

In senior high school, I wrote a vastly more sophisticated series, "Tales of the Starfire," with Starfire as the name of the ship. A very observant reader will notice some oh similarities to "Star Trek,"  although I had a female protagonist and all of humanity was either under the dominion of the evil alien race ("Rzzkstor" - say that ten times!) or living on a sekrit base under Antarctica. Or on this one ship! And again, cue the HEA with marriages and babies and I even wrote a sequel about the granddaughter of my heroine and a prequel about the ancestress of all of them. The connecting thread, besides the ship, was a nearly immortal, many-armed alien Chief Engineer. And as you might expect, ALL of this SFR marvelousness is totally unreadable. OMG. But hey, I was learning.

(I also messed up my GPA because on the day we were supposed to be diagramming sentences, I was at a key plot point and I consciously decided to take a C on the diagramming and work on my novel all 6th period instead. Seriously, WHAT is the point of diagramming sentences??? Although I can still stick those pesky adverbs on their downward pointing lines to this day...but I digress.)

So when I began seriously working on becoming a published author a few years ago, I decided connected series were probably the way for me to go. Tell lots of stories in one universe but not try for direct sequels. So my SFR's are currently all taking place in the galactic Sectors of the far future and my Ancient Egyptian paranormals are all occuring in 1550 BCE, during the reign of my pharaoh Nat-re-Akhte. (You can peruse my web page if your curiousity is piqued.)

But now, I find I'm "thinking in series mode" again! I'm finishing up a witch & shifter WIP that would be the start of a four or five book series. I actually know the key plot points for each, which is amazing since I'm NOT a plotter.  I'm contemplating the arc of a generational family series in my Ancient Egypt. I just wrote a direct sequel to my first ever published novel...Readers have been asking for the sequel to "Wreck of the Nebula Dream", which is an author's dream (they actually want to know what happened to Khevan and Twilka next?!)....what is going on here??? Maybe my Muse is getting ambitious LOL, stretching her wings. (Do Muses have wings? Save that thought for another post.)

I don't think I'll ever be a Nalini Singh, with her incredibly detailed series, where you're reading book 12 and you discover she's now resolved a question she barely brought up in a much beloved short story years ago - I love her books!!! Or an Anne McCaffrey with all the years of delicious revelations about how the Dragons of Pern came to be. But maybe there's hope for me yet.

Do you have a favorite series?