Forum: Author Hangout

I've read the stories and think additional stories would be a series due to same MC and same types of plots (i.e. PI stories).

You may want to think on setting the next story as an investigation in the southwest. Perhaps you should do a takeoff on Trumps Wall and something like Mexican smugglers brining people into the US and returning with kidnapped young women or something else that would be valuable in Mexico. Perhaps a cartel gathering US defense information (?) or weapons that could be used to takeover the Mexican Government.

Yeah, good idea. Thanks.

When I write a story that I lose interest in (plot, characters) I don't complete it and throw it away.

I'm not quite as extreme, as I rarely throw anything in the virtual trash, but I've found that, if I don't act on an idea without a certain number of months, my ideas for the story harden, so what should be a fluid story that essentially tells itself, I become locked into a rigid approach to the story. Thus, anything I don't address in three to six months, I generally consider dead ends. If I don't get to it in that amount of time, I assume the story premise wasn't really that intriguing if it didn't fight stronger to be written. However, as Ernest attests, that's just me, as he actively keeps multiple stories going at the same time, often spanning years between each individual project.

For many of us, mainly those who write 'complete' stories before posting, we write the story to it's natural ending, and write to the conclusion (i.e. we don't keep cranking out chapters to keep the story going). Since we start out having a clear idea where the story will conclude, it's more or less a straight line from the beginning to the end, with multiple surprises for us along the way we never anticipated.

To answer your question, which plays into my point, a serial is a story (on SOL) while continues, chapter after chapter, in an ongoing effort for some time. A series is a collection of concrete 'books' (each a complete story in and of itself), which continue a given story line.

However, having a clear end doesn't mean the story has to stop there. Often, I'll write a given story, knowing where it'll end, but after finishing the story and posting it, several months later, when I'm not even considering the story anymore, I'll suddenly get an insight into an entirely new aspect of the story, which gives me a way to continue the story while making it into a completely new tale. It's at that point that I add a book to an existing series.

When I first wrote Love and Family During the Great Death, it was intended to be a 'one and done' story. I was interested in writing an apocalyptic tale
that address how the individual involved though about the deaths of their families and loved ones. Once completed, even though the two main characters did survive, I wasn't terribly interested in writing 'yet another' post-apocalyptic tale, thinking I had nothing to make it markedly different than the many already out. However, months later, I realized that how those people dealt with their losses impacted the sequel, as instead of fighting over the spoils, everyone simply wanted to be left alone in their grief, even as my main characters realized there were future catastrophes on the horizon, and they had to organize the survivors in order to prevent even more deaths.

It'a akin to the difference between writing a 'day in the life' story, where you simply focus on what happens from one moment to the next, and writing an 'episodic' story, which jumps from one specific episode to another. Rather than covering everything that happens in any given day, each chapter deals with a specific event, whether that event happens in a single afternoon, or covers multiple days.

Once you start looking at episodic stories, it's much easier to control the story, as you ONLY include those items that are central to the plot. It also becomes much easier to control the length of your stories when you think them that way.

In a series, each book is a complete 'story', a string of episodes which involve a specific conflict, but which doesn't resolve the ultimate conflict addressed by the entire series until the final resolution of the entire series.

And once you resolve the essential conflict in a series, there's really nothing else to add beyond a few additional chapters which aren't going anywhere in particular.

Finally, in a universe, you have a string of complete stories which all occur within a given fictional universe. Thus I could have had multiple authors writing in my Great Death universe, by addressing what happens to the survivors in different nations across the globe in the same basic timespan.

To answer your question, which plays into my point, a serial is a story (on SOL) while continues, chapter after chapter, in an ongoing effort for some time. A series is a collection of concrete 'books' (each a complete story in and of itself), which continue a given story line.

"Which continue a given story line."

James Bond books don't continue a given story line. Jason Bourne did, but not James Bond or Jack Reacher. The same main character (in Bond, several characters) is involved in different stories. Does it have to be a continuation to be a series or simply just the same main character?

Does it have to be a continuation to be a series or simply just the same main character?

According to Lazeez's Help document:

What is a series?

A series is an organizational structure that allows you to organize a group of stories with a common theme or common main character.

Series can be ordered or un-ordered. Ordered series are for a series of stories that are best read or presented in a particular sequence. Un-ordered series is simply a collection of stories and are presented to the reader in alphabetical order.

For example two separate stories that have the same main character who is a detective. Two different cases, that makes two different stories, but it's one series of stories about the detective's exploits.

James Bond books don't continue a given story line. Jason Bourne did, but not James Bond or Jack Reacher. The same main character (in Bond, several characters) is involved in different stories. Does it have to be a continuation to be a series or simply just the same main character?

In my case, since I'm creating entire worlds with a major conflicting connecting each book, we're basically dealing with different scenarios. Since you're essentially talking about the continuing adventures (non-related by any inherent central conflict other than good-guy/bad-guy), you're basically writing a non-sequential, where the only connection is the time/place/people and the central character.

If you want an classic example, it's akin to a writing Mrs. Marple, Detective Clouseau or Perry Mason series. If you want a more recent example, check out the 'Florida Friends' series (which has a little more of a coherent, sequential nature).

That's a fine way to write stories, but it's not the type of stories that I write where there's an overriding conflict driving the entire series (and clear demarcations, beginnings and ending points for each book). However, in your case, the 'essential conflict' revolves entirely around your character's current case, and once the character is caught, that's essentially the end of that book. How you handle character development, allowing the character to grow and become something bigger than he was initially, will be your biggest challenge, as must of the classic mystery series I pointed out never really addressed those points.

I guess a better example might be the House TV series, where the lead character has a series of episodic adventures, but the central conflict linking them all together his is gradual self-destructive tendencies, with readers wondering when he's going to finally end his career and get himself killed.

You can see the difference in our different storytelling as my currently posting detective story ends * * * SPOILER ALERT * * *, the story concludes with the end of the detectives career, and an entirely new, but non-related career opening up for her. In short, in my worlds, there are clear story arcs with clear beginnings and clear endings.

If you want an classic example, it's akin to a writing Mrs. Marple, Detective Clouseau or Perry Mason series. If you want a more recent example, check out the 'Florida Friends' series (which has a little more of a coherent, sequential nature).

So they are called series.

So they are called series.

Yeah, but they were all non-sequential. Even if the character grows, it doesn't matter to the reader in what order the stories are read, as the character growth is essentially unimportant to each story. It's entertaining, but won't affect what happens in the next story.

Florida Friends is a hybrid, as it's sequential, with the actions in one chapter affecting what comes after, but the main continuity in the story is which collection of women are currently following him around (not to diminish the essential strengths of the series).

How I work:
One of the reasons I have so many stories I'm working on is because when I have an issue about how to do a scene or if I think I may want to change the direction I put the story aside and work on something else while I let my mind work it over. In some cases real life interrupts my creative flow on a story and I put it aside until I can settle down from what upset me so much. Then it's not always the same story I work on once I start in writing again.

REP, Ernest has a good point here, but I have a quicker response to the same issues. I take the same approach, but rather than putting the story aside and not thinking about it, I first determine the essential problem with the story as it stands, I then go for a long walk on the beach on in the woods, purposely blank my mind out and allow it to wander aimlessly (i.e. no phone, no music or any other external distractions). Once I understand what's causing the problem, invariable, the story conflict will resolve itself during my extended walk, at which point I'll hurry back, playing out how to resolve the crisis in my mind, and I'm ready to tackle the story with new eyes once I get back.

The key is, recognizing that 'writer's block' is nothing more than your characters objecting that you're forcing them to act in ways they're uncomfortable with. You job, should you accept it, is to identify specifically what your characters are objecting to. Once you have that, your characters will essentially work everything out once you finally give them free reign to resolve it themselves (as aside to shelving the problem without directly addressing it).