Quick Tips for Writing a Book Series

This week is all about the book series. How do you plan your writing to build an expansive world? What are the kinds of series you can choose from? (Psst: there's more than one!)

Tip #1: Think big, even if you have a small town.

Tip #2: Identify the type of series that's best for your story.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Author Wheel podcast.
I'm Megan Haskell,award-winning fantasy author of
the Signore Chronicles and theRise of Lilith series.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
And I'm Greta Boras, USA Today bestselling author of
the Mortician Murders and thesoon-to-be-released Almost True
Crime series.
Together, we are the AuthorWheel.
Our goal is to help youovercome your writing roadblocks
so you can keep your storiesrolling.
This week, we are talking aboutplanning a series and building

(00:29):
a world that lasts.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yes, yes, and this is so key If you're writing any
kind of genre fiction, andespecially if you're indie
writing.
Series is so important forlong-term marketing benefits and
all sorts of other reasons, butit's not always obvious how to
do that right.
Your story might notautomatically lend itself to

(00:55):
being written into a series, sowe're going to walk you through
our favorite tips for how towrite series and what that looks
like.
But the first tip is to thinkbig.
Even if you have a small townand I know that seems kind of
weird, because last week wetalked about world building and
you know how you need to make itfeel real but sometimes that
small town setting can actuallybe a great starting off point

(01:18):
for a much bigger series.
The key here, though, is thatyour world has to be able to
support a large cast ofcharacters with different
stories, different careers,different backgrounds, things to
keep it interesting for yourreader.
Some of the most successfulauthors we know have actually
written multiple series all inthe same or adjacent slightly

(01:42):
different, but the same world.
So you can kind of think of itlike the Marvel movies, where
even the Guardians of the Galaxyand Thor franchises can
ultimately be linked back to theAvengers and even Spider man
right, they all kind of tie intogether.
And going back to another quicktip episode from a few weeks
ago, easter eggs it's a greatway to just tie things all

(02:05):
together is just to have alittle, a little hint of
something in the story thatrelates to other series.
In our interview last Octoberwe talked with hugely successful
author Pamela Fagan Hutchinsabout how all of her books
across all of her series arereally in the same world and
that's tied in her readers andbrought them through series to

(02:26):
series to series.
They're all interconnected andyou can listen to that
conversation.
It's season four, episode five,from October 9, 2023.
So when you're planning yourseries or multiple series,
consider the ways to tie themtogether, to expand those worlds
, to make them broader than justyour initial idea.

(02:48):
You can use side characterspinoffs, you can use prequels
or you can use future worlds.
There's all sorts of differentways to do it.
But open up your mind and thinkthrough how that small world
can be made even bigger.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
That is great advice, but tip number two is what kind
of series might work for yourstory.
There is more than one type ofseries, and often we don't think
of that.
We think of the type of seriesthat we read the most, like it's
the only kind, but there aremany kinds and they work

(03:25):
differently, and so they workbetter to support different
kinds of stories.
So the four that we like totalk about that I actually
learned in a online course manymoons ago is the first is the
big book, and it's onecontinuing story, like Lord of
the Rings, and it has to be kindof divvied up into a trilogy or

(03:48):
whatever, or it would breakyour arm trying to carry it
around.
It just would be way too manypages.
So a big book, and for many ofus that's the kind of thing we
think of as a series.
But there are more.
The second type is the linkedsequential.
In a linked sequential, eachbook is a complete story, but

(04:13):
you really do need to read themin order or you're going to miss
some of the key details andyou'll be a little lost.
Family sagas are famous forlinked sequentials, but many
other types of series are aswell.
So my Mortician series andMegan's Signore Chronicles are
both link, sequential, so withineach book there is a complete,
satisfying wrap up of a story.

(04:33):
It opens and all of that, butthere is an overarching
character arc that grows fromstory to story to stories.
If you want to understand thatcharacter's romance, for
instance, or how they'redeveloping as a person or
whatever, you need to read thestories in order.
The next type is called linkedstandalones and by the title you

(04:59):
can tell that they areobviously linked but they're
completely standalone.
So they're really common inmysteries and so each book
usually has the same maincharacter, but you don't have to
read the stories in order.
That main character will nothave much of an arc, of a
personality arc or anything likethat.
So it's fine.

(05:19):
So a real obvious example isSherlock Holmes, also Jack
Reacher in that hard adventuretype thriller.
They can often be linkedstandalones, those kind of books
.
And then the fourth type areloosely connected standalones

(05:40):
and these are more common inromance for instance, because
you can't have the samecharacters, you know falling in
love and having a happily everafter Well, a happily ever after
would be awkward.
You know, first book they havehappily ever.
After second book she getsdivorced and does it all over
again.
I don't know, not working.

(06:00):
So in romance you would havedifferent protagonists but what
connects them is the world, orthe job place or their family or
some other element.
So and each say, say, I knowsomebody had one that was set in
a bar and all the bar employeesgot their own romance, you know

(06:23):
, so it was shifting.
Just couldn't think of a primarycharacter that was a strong
enough character to carry offseven stories.
Plus, I wanted them to be, youknow, psychological suspense,

(06:44):
which is usually surrounding anormal everyday person a real
estate broker, a interiordesigner, a chef, whatever.
Those kind of people do notbump into dead bodies every day
of the week and it would bereally odd if they did.
Yeah, yeah, so I.
So I use a different maincharacter, but the Almost True

(07:07):
Crime series, as they're beingrewritten, is interesting
because they're a little lessloosely connected now, because I
have created a character who'skind of narrating all their
stories.
So she shows up in every book.
So we'll have to talk aboutthat in the future, yeah, but
anyway, those are the differenttypes of series, so you can see
that most stories can fit intoone of those type of series.

(07:31):
You can develop a series aroundalmost every kind of book.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely All right.
Well, if you are enjoying thispodcast, please consider
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(07:58):
of semi-writer famous.
So there you go.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, always good 15 seconds of fame, yeah not 15
minutes 15 seconds.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
I like it, yeah, but if that's not possible right now
, you can also support the showby subscribing, leaving us a
five-star review or sharing yourfavorite episode with a writer
friend.
But until next time, keep yourstories rolling.