Sometimes a story is too big for just One Book
You have an idea. Not just any idea, a big idea! We’re talking ten thousand pages, hundreds of thousands of words, the next Great Doorstop of a novel!
Consider breaking that up into a series!
Smaller books are more accessible, and a series keeps you in the front of your readers’ minds. With books consistently coming out, winning awards, and receiving reviews, the marketing for those happens much more naturally than having to bring out a backlist of unrelated novels. When a book takes place in a series, a reader who read an earlier book already knows they’re going like what they pick up.
With the incredible versatility of a book series, we now offer the Book Series Awards for Genre Fiction in addition to progressive discounts on multiple book reviews.
But where to start? How do you link your series together? What goes into finishing an actual series?
Series Theme
Theme is the central idea of the series. Your theme informs the main character’s goal, their motivation to pursue that goal, and the threats to their success.
Your stories are grounded in the theme. A hero who saves the world from evil plans will experience different challenges than two teenage friends who love to solve small-town mysteries. The theme helps you maintain the tone of each book in the series. If one book is filled with irony and another is deadly serious, your readers will be disappointed and stop reading. That’s why your theme is important to the success of the entire series.
There’s no guaranteed formula, but you can start out by doing some serious research into great series that have already succeeded. The tools you discover will help fashion unique work for you and your voice.
Let’s Dive in!
Research and Read
Everyone will tell you to be a great writer, you should be a great reader. Think about the series you want to write, and ask yourself: What authors do I admire who are doing something similar? You’re going to want to look through their books for all that we will discuss here, as well as comparing it to your own understanding of structure and what makes a good story.
If you aren’t sure where to start, you can reference this wonderful article on plotting by Jessica Morrell here.
In it, she covers some of what authors need to consider when writing, such as:
- What is the inciting event or threat?
- Environment
- Risks to take with your characters
And if you want more, you can refer to this article on story structure by David Beaumier that looks at
- Dialogue
- Character
- Plot
- Voice
- Beats
- Show vs Tell
Now that you have your list and a running understanding of what’s making the books work, you can take notes on what your favorite series are doing that makes them your favorite series! Your notes should cover the important events in each book, and then ask yourself what the overall point of the book was, and finally how did that book fit into the series as a whole.
With regards to character, you’ll want to examine which central characters return, and how many new characters come on the scene (these are named characters where you receive background on them and they have a non-trivial impact on your main cast).
At the end, do a comparison of themes between books and ask how they relate to other books in the series.
Here are some of our favorite series that also won First Place in the Series Awards! you could look through for ideas. Let us know if any of them are similar to what you want to write!
M. K. Wiseman – The Bookminder series
You can read the review here for The Bookminder
Kaylin McFarren – Threads
Read the reviews here for Buried Threads, Banished Threads, and Twisted Threads
Mark Newhouse – The Devil’s Bookkeepers
Read the reviews here for The Noose, The Noose Tightens, and The Noose Closes
Nicole Evelina – The Guinevere’s Tale Trilogy
Read the reviews here for Daughter of Destiny and Camelot’s Queen
Have a Book Series that deserves recognition? Submit now to our Book Series Awards here by the end of November!
The 2021 Series Grand Prize Winner was Nicole Evelina, author of The Guinevere’s Tale Trilogy.
See the 2021 Series Award Winners here!
Helpful Links Recap:
Understanding Story Structure by David Beaumier
The traditional publishing tool that indie authors can use to propel their writing careers to new levels? https://test.chantireviews.com/2016/05/15/the-seven-must-haves-for-authors-unlocking-the-secrets-of-successful-publishing-series-by-kiffer-brown/
