4 Ways to Hook Readers on Your Series

By Laurence MacNaughton, @LMacNaughton

Part of The How They Do It Series

JH: Not every reader starts a series with Book One. Laurence MacNaughton shares tips on how to hook your reader no matter which book in the series they start with.

Wouldn't it be great if every reader started your series with the first book and continued onward in order? But sometimes readers start in the middle of your series, especially if it's in paperback, and they can easily get confused. You need to hook them on your story quickly.

To do that, you need to make sure that every book in your series invites new readers into your world and brings them up to speed quickly. And you have to do it without boring your existing readers. It's a tall order, but I'll show you how.

I ran into this problem with A Kiss Before Doomsday, the second book of my Dru Jasper urban fantasy series. After the first book made a big splash on the front table at Barnes & Noble, we followed up with a big publicity push on the second one. For many readers, Book Two was actually their entry point into the series.

7 Tips on Writing a Series

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

 This week's Refresher Friday takes another peek at things to consider before your write a series. Enjoy!

A novel series is an investment, both on the writer’s part, and the reader’s. Most of the time, it’s designed from the start to span multiple books—either open-ended or with a predetermined number of books planned. It’s a commitment to live in the same world with the same characters for years—or decades in Sue Grafton’s case.

The series might be a collection of stand-alone novels that all explore a common genre, such as a mystery or a romance. It might have a common element that ties the books together, such as characters who all work at the same law firm, or romances between a common group of characters. In some series, you can even read the books out of order and it won’t matter, because they’re not dependent on each other to understand the overall story.

Starting your Series: Worldbuilding, Research, and… When to Stop

By J. Kathleen Cheney, @jkcheney

Part of the Indie Authors Series

Writers are caught in a world of conflicting priorities, exemplified by two axioms, one Portuguese, one Italian: Haste is the enemy of perfection and Perfection is the enemy of good

Like most things in life, it’s about the balance.

HERE I BLATHER ON ABOUT HOW I REACHED THAT CONCLUSION

When I first started writing my Golden City stories, I didn’t know what I was getting into. I planned a novelette of 15K words. I had an outline for a story set in 1900 Venice. I dove in and began writing… only to have the story tell me that Venice was not the right setting. After about 30 minutes of looking at European maps, I thought, Hey! I’ll set this in Portugal instead, and went on to finish the novelette.

Baking a Series from Scratch…

By J. Kathleen Cheney, @jkcheney

Part of the Indie Authors Series

Last time I posted here, I was asked by commenters to talk about how to start a series.That’s a huge topic, and it covers a handful of different quandaries.

As I look at it, there are two main areas:

1. How to PLAN a series, and

2. How to make yourself sit down and WRITE a series.

Now, my own series fall into two separate and fairly equal piles—ones I meant to be series, and ones I didn’t.In fact, most of the other writers I talked to about this topic agreed. Some series are planned, others just happen organically.

A 3-Step Plan for Handling Backstory in a Series

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Backstory. It’s right up there with adverbs for the top things writers avoid when writing. But in a series, backstory is more just just the history going into book one—it’s everything that’s happened in previous books, too.

This is particularly challenging if the series has an over-arcing storyline. Events from previous books affect what’s happening in the current book, and if readers haven’t read them (or haven’t read them in a long time), references to those events are meaningless or confusing.

6 Things to Consider Before Writing a Series

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

A great series is both popular and profitable, but it takes a little more work (and thought) than a stand-alone novel. Balancing what readers love about the series with keeping it fresh can be challenging, as can deciding how much backstory to rehash each book to get readers up to speed, or how many books a series will have.

Even if you prefer to pants your novel, a little thought before you start your series can save you a lot of hassles later. And for outliners and planners—having a solid foundation to work with will make writing the individual books that much easier.

8 Tips on Writing a Series

By Julie Moffett, @JMoffettAuthor

Part of the How They Do It Series

Julie Moffett is a bestselling author and writes in the genres of mystery, historical romance and paranormal romance. She has won numerous awards, including the 2014 Mystery & Mayhem Award for Best YA/New Adult Mystery, the prestigious 2014 HOLT Award for Best Novel with Romantic Elements, a HOLT Merit Award for Best Novel by a Virginia Author (twice!), the 2016 Award of Excellence, a PRISM Award for Best Romantic Time-Travel AND Best of the Best Paranormal Books of 2002, and the 2011 EPIC Award for Best Action/Adventure Novel. She has also garnered additional nominations for the Bookseller's Best Award, Daphne du Maurier Award and the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence. Her book A Double-Edged Blade was an Amazon #1 Best-Selling Novel.

Julie has a B.A. in Political Science and Russian Language from Colorado College, a M.A. in International Affairs from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and an M.Ed from Liberty University. She has worked as a proposal writer, journalist, teacher, librarian and researcher. Julie speaks Russian and Polish and has two sons.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads |

Take it away Julie...

3 Key Elements of Successful Pitching

By Vivian Conroy @VivWrites

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Pitching a novel can be a terrifying experience, but if you prepare before you pitch, you not only settle the nerves, but increase your chances of success. Please help me welcome Vivian Conroy to the podium today, to share her thoughts on pitching a novel series.

Hooked on mystery since she read her first Agatha Christie at thirteen, Vivian Conroy writes the Lady Alkmene Callender 1920s' mysteries for an imprint of HarperCollins. Book 1, A PROPOSAL TO DIE FOR -- described by reviewers as 'a cross between Downton Abbey and Miss Marple' and 'an exciting, humorous and fabulously witty voyage'-- was released on September 19 and is available through Amazon, BN.com, Kobo, Ibooks, and Google Play.

Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Take it away Vivian...

Take Two: Challenges of Sequel Writing (and ways to overcome them)

By Stefanie Gaither, @stefaniegaither

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Writing a sequel is both fun and a little scary. It's great to spend more time in a world we love, but book two is notoriously harder than book one, with its own set of challenges. Please help me welcome Stefanie Gaither to the lecture hall today to share some of those challenges (and how to overcome them).

Stefanie has done everything from working on a chicken farm to running a small business— with a lot of really odd jobs in between— but since the release of her debut novel, Falls the Shadow, she's more or less settled on the job title of author. And between writing and trying to keep up with one very wild baby girl, she manages to keep very happily busy.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | Indie Bound

Take it away Stefanie...

Write Book One, Not Book Two

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Io9 ran an interesting article yesterday entitled, Some Movies Are So Worried About Setting Up a Sequel They Forget to be Good. (I’d summarize, but the title says it all). This is something I’ve also seen in books, though from a slightly different angle.

Some writers are so enamored with the idea of writing a trilogy or series, they stretch an otherwise good story so thin it falls apart.

Although anyone can make this mistake, you see it most often in the science fiction and fantasy genres. I suspect “epic fantasy” catapulted the entire genre into thinking every story had to be at least a trilogy.

Take Two: When to Start a Sequel

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy 

So many books are series-based these days (especially in some genres), which can leave a lot of writers asking the same question--when is a good time to start my sequel?

I asked my agent the same thing before she sent my manuscript out on submission way back in 2008. She'd advised that I prepare a synopsis for the next two books so she'd have something to show editors, but to start on a new, non-sequel book in the meantime. Her reasoning was that if the first book didn't sell, I wouldn't have wasted time on a sequel that also wouldn't sell, and would instead be ready with a new book.

Trading One World for Another

By J. Kathleen Cheney, @jkcheney

Part of the How They Do It Series

For many writers, publishing a series is a dream come true. We live in our worlds, consider our characters family, and are always looking for new stories to tell about this world and its people. But series do end, and sometimes it's time to move on to something new. J. Kathleen Cheney visits the lecture hall today to share some thoughts on moving on, and why it can be bittersweet.

J. Kathleen Cheney taught mathematics ranging from 7th grade to Calculus, but gave it all up for a chance to write stories. Her novella "Iron Shoes" was a 2010 Nebula Award Finalist. Her novel, The Golden City was a Finalist for the 2014 Locus Awards (Best First Novel). Dreaming Death will be the first in a new series, the Palace of Dreams Novels.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | Indie Bound

Take it away JK...

SERIES: To Be or Not To Be (and when to stop being!)

By Jade Kerrion, @JadeKerrion

JH: Please help me welcome Jade Kerrion to the blog today, to talk with us about different types of books in a series, and how to know when to stop writing one. 

Jade's varied background led her through many careers across many industries, including container shipping, education, and management consulting. In her spare time, she wrote stories – young adult, fantasy, and science fiction – and developed a loyal reader base with her fan fiction series based on the MMORPG Guild Wars. She lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with her wonderfully supportive husband and two young sons, Saint and Angel, (no, those aren’t their real names, but they are like saints and angels, except when they’re not.)

Take it away Jade...

Untangling the Webs We Weave: Revising a Series

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Revisions. How many of you got a shiver just reading that? I’m a bit of a freak, because I enjoy revisions. I love digging back into a draft and turning “meh” into “wow.” To shape a story from a wandering mess to something that can hold a reader’s attention for 400 pages.

Until I wrote a trilogy. And then had to revise that.

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy revisions, but revising a series took different skills than revising a stand-alone novel. Here are some things I learned that could help if you’re working on a series.

The Whole Story: Plotting Multibook Goals

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Goals are what drive a story, but in a series, there's always a larger goal looming over the entire tale. It's too big to ignore, but also frequently too big to make it the core conflict of the first novel in the series. To keep readers hooked, you have to work your way up to that all-important series goal.

Photo by Angie Torres via flikr

Long-Term Investments
A series is a complicated thing to plot, because you have to worry about an overall story goal that might span three books to ten books or even more. If the series is situational, like a mystery with a detective, each book will have its own goal and there probably won't be a larger issue hanging over the protag's head. (though there might be a larger character arc goal to work toward as the series develops). But for stories designed to be told over the course of several novels, it takes a lot more work to lead up to that final payoff. Because you essentially have one large story.

Keeping Your Series Fresh

By Cathy Clamp

Part of the How They Do It Series   

JH: We have double the fun this week with two "How They Do It" posts (YAY!). Cat Adams is the pseudonym for writing team C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp, and their urban fantasy Blood Song released this week. This pair has a long history of writing urban fantasy series, so Cathy is going to share some tips on how to keep a series fresh and how not to steal your own ideas when you start a new one.

Take it away, Cathy...