Xlibris Writing Tips| 4 Tips for Writing a Book Series

In this Writing Tips article, Xlibris Publishing wants to share 4 Tips for Writing a Book Series. The first Tip? Not all books need to be a series…

 

Tip #1: One Book or More?

Xlibris Writing Tips| 4 Tips for Writing a Book Series
Some stories need only one book to be told, some might need more…

There is nothing wrong with single, standalone novels. There are stories and character journeys that can be effectively told in a single novel. There are times when dragging out a story, especially over multiple books, can be detrimental to the story, forcing you to write pointless filler or padding that delays the narrative payoffs. Sometimes a character achieves a happy ending, one hard-earned but more than deserved, and to force a sequel would undo and undermine that happy ending dulling the emotional payoff for readers.

 

 

 

That said, if you feel there is more substance in your story, more build-up needed, more character development required than can reasonably fit in one novel or one story-arc… then you should consider a series. Or perhaps there is much more to the world and setting you’ve crafted for your story than can be fitted into one book’s plot? Maybe there is a distant, strange land you reference in the first book that you’re eager to expand upon, but would make no real sense to do so at the time? Series and sequels give room for you to expand on such ideas, with breathing room to design plots best suited for them.

 

 

Tip #2: Plots Great and Small

One of the keys to having a long-running series, especially if each book is part of one continuous, overarching story, is that each book should have at least plot that takes central importance in that book. The plot and conflict for which there has been the most struggle, the most emotional investment, the most dedicated page-space. This is beneficial both to readers and to you the author.

 

It is rare to maintain singular plots throughout multiple books without creating a strain on yourself and your readers. Plots that continue on without resolution become more for your reader to keep up with and more for your to keep straight and consistent. Consider having the main plots of each book resolved by the end of their respective books, and only having a few certain elements (discoveries, individuals, artifacts) that carry on and turn out to have much larger ramifications and importance to the overarching plot.  Do not set up plot elements primarily to set up your overarching plot or to serve as a sequel hook. This has been to the detriment of many replicate the financial success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films.

 

 

 

Tip #3 Interesting Characters

Marvel Studious’ success at maintaining a film universe with continuous and contiguous plots is in one part due to the studio understanding how important it is to have characters audiences like and are invested in. To invest readers in the long run- find out what happens to whom; will so-and-so avenge their father; will ‘those-two’ get together; Getting audiences to care about characters, what happens with them, what they do or how they react to certain things, can be what carries readership across multiple books.

 

 

 

Tip #4 an Interesting Setting

One of the appeals of the Star Wars franchise for years has been its large, expansive setting with all manner of lore, history, and cultures to explore. This allows for any number of stories and adventures that have nothing to do with the main films or even any of the characters seen in the films. The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone is made up almost entirely by novels that take place in the same world, operate by the same metaphysical rules, but are barely connected with each other beyond vague references. Different books in the Sequence can have different central protagonists who seemingly will never interact with each other. This allows the author to explore very different corners of the setting, the cultures, peoples and powers that inhabit said corners.

 

 

Xlibris Publishing trusts this helps

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By Ian Smith