Welcome, Eileen Troemel!!
How to Write a Long Series
(in theory)
If you want to write a long series, you should probably start a spreadsheet for all your details. Names, descriptions, scenes, ideas, summaries of books, and so on. That would be the logical way to start a series. If you are a person who plots out your books, that’s probably the best way to start a series.
I don’t plot my books. I just write them. I sit down to my computer and start with an idea. I let things flow as they come. If I’ve finished something, I look through my WIP folder and open what sounds good and then I read. I edit as I go because the mistakes offend me (yes even in my own stories).
I wrote a series of nineteen books – one short story (prequel) and eighteen full length novels. I sat down to my computer and wrote. Before I started the second novel, I reread the first one. Then I let the characters take me where they wanted. This is how I’ve written most of my novels. I think it’s worked well.
It sounds like I’m super disorganized, doesn’t it? How in the world did I manage to write so many in a series? The snarky(ish) answer is – one story at a time. Let me give you some background.
In 2014, I published my first books (romance novel, meditation self help book, and three poetry books). Like all new authors, I was pretty clueless. Reading articles – they all said don’t wait, publish your next book.
My middle daughter and I had this conversation about books – one of like a billion. She asked what I was doing next. I said I didn’t have any idea. She asked for a space scifi romance where the woman comes from a vulnerable point.
Ideas popped into my head. I pulled from different experiences in building my character and the world (or more appropriately universe) she was in. Put in ideas on travelers, gypsies, and other nomadic societies, my love of Star Trek, Star Wars (and other space type movies) and about a thousand other ideas and experience into my head, mix and spew out the results. Five months to the day from my first book, I published Wayfarer.
For me, it was one and done. Then my readers got a hold of it. My daughter finished it and said – what’s next? (this is a theme). I said – no I told her story. I’m done.
I was but Adara and Decker weren’t. I don’t think it took long and I was working on Wayfarer Clans… and then Wayfarer Immemorial… and – well you get the idea. By the end of 2014 I’d published four Wayfarer novels. In January 2015, I published Wayfarer Wedding and I thought I was done. My main characters were married. They had their happy ever after – right?
Nope. I wrote the prequel next and then just kept writing their story.
Clearly, I did not start out to write a series. I almost never plot out a book. When I started Wayfarer – I only had the female main character, her race, and a vague setting. I’m pretty sure I wrote several scenes before she even had a name.
As soon as people – i.e. authors – hear I wrote a series with eighteen novels and a short story, the first question is – How did you keep track of everything?
First book, I didn’t. I think I was three novels in when the idea of keeping a spreadsheet came to me. One thing I did not want to do as I wrote a series was to mess up someone’s backstory or say someone had green eyes in one place and blue in another.
So I started a spreadsheet. I reread all the books and each new character, Wayfarer words, ship, and other details in the books went into my spreadsheet. I’ve got nine tabs in it. On some of the tabs, I’ve got a ton of information and others ended up being just a short list.
I know at one point, I added the number of books so I could track who came in when and who was in which books. I used this to keep a summary of each book. I cannot tell you how many times I used the summary to figure out days between events. There’s a lot of pregnancies in my series so making sure the right amount of time had passed was key. But I also used it to figure out ages and other things. If I was working on a Wayfarer novel, I had my spreadsheet open. It was my ultimate referral.
One other thing which helped me was to reread the books. One reason to reread the previous books was to get the feel for the characters, setting, and tone. It helped me fall back into Adara’s head or whichever character I needed to write about.
Rarely did I start a book with a plan. When I reached book ten (Wayfarer Expansion), I freaked out a bit. TEN books. It seemed like such a big deal. Was the story good enough to be book ten? Obviously it had to be BETTER! I edited and edited and edited. In passing, I told a friend how I was feeling and she reminded me numerological a ten is a one so it’s a beginning. It was simple. It’s just another step in the series. I finished my edits and published.
My middle daughter and I talked (another of those billion book conversations) about authors who kill off characters. Somewhat to tease her, I said maybe I should kill someone off in the Wayfarer novel. What was meant to tease my daughter turned into a serious discussion of how it should be done. When I started writing Wayfarer Acceptance, there were two things I knew – I did not want to write another birthing scene and one of the characters would not survive the end of the book.
Around book twelve (Wayfarer Convictions) or thirteen (Wayfarer Limits), I realized the stories were leading to a huge change in the storyline. I knew at this point where Adara was going to end up. What? Plotting? Yes – minimally.
One of the things I hate about long series is without fail, repeats occur. I looked at where I’d been in the series and realized I was coming to the end.
My daughter and I talked about different crimes and different overall themes and at some point, I realized – wow this is so hard to write without giving spoilers. Let’s just say my characters evolved to a point where their lives were changing. By book fourteen, I knew how many books I had left to write. It was supposed to be three more but when I wrote the last book it ended up being too long for one book. I split it and the series ended with eighteen full length novels.
My lessons from this… well bullet points work for me:
- Each book has to have a beginning, middle, and end. This doesn’t mean a storyline can’t carry over but there has to be some sort of conclusion.
- Use a spreadsheet or something like it to keep track of all the details in your series.
- Avoid any kind of formulaic format.
- Stretch yourself and your skills by taking risks.
- Follow the story and be true to your characters.
- Know when it’s time to end the series.
It doesn’t matter how you write – plotting or writing as it comes or jumping all over the place. What matters is the story. Each book has to be unique and different so the reader doesn’t know what to expect. Once your reader knows what to expect, they start to get bored. Bored readers are never good.
The answer to the question – how do you write a long series? – is not simple or easy. You write your way, honor your characters and your story, and hope the readers LOVE what you write.
Read Eileen’s interview about writing the Wayfarer series
About Eileen:
Author of Moon Affirmations as well as poetry, novels, and short stories, Eileen enjoys telling a good story or expressing a heartfelt emotion. She’s been published in The American Tarot Association’s Quarterly Journal, What’s Cooking America, Children, Churches and Daddies, and many other publications. In addition to her writing, she loves to read, crochet, crafting, research genealogy, and spend time with family. She has three adult daughters and has been married to her husband for 38 years.
I hope authors will check my social media for information to help authors who are featured. I have four categories which specifically pertain to authors.
Tips for Authors (https://eileentroemel.com/category/tips-for-authors/). This is a series of blog posts which I hope will help writers who think they are ready to step from final draft to editing and hopefully publishing. As I think of more topics I plan to add to this. Editor Interviews (https://eileentroemel.com/category/editor-interview/) which asks editors key questions. This gives authors a chance to get to know editors and how they think. Book Tour (https://eileentroemel.com/category/book-tour/) which I get book information from companies who offer book tours.
However, I also post for any author who asks. All they have to do is provide me with the information. I’ve worked with a lot of authors and I’m now starting to get requests from publisher. Author Interviews (https://eileentroemel.com/category/author-interview/) In this section, I send out 10 questions to authors who want to be interviewed and they provide me answers and pictures and graphics to post. These all get posted on my web site and then they go out to my social media.
One last thing – though this isn’t on my blog but in my group on Facebook – I’ve been doing live (typed) interviews. I create a post about the author and the book we’re talking about. Then in the comments I ask question and the author answers. Others are invited to ask as well.
One thing I want to say – I don’t charge for any of this. Yes, it takes time and effort but I’m not out any money. I’ve gotten to know some great authors and learned about genres I don’t write in.
My philosophy – hmmm well I’d like to have some lofty esoteric response here but the answer is simple. I’m an author. Almost daily, I get requests to advertise with some group or someone wants to do a review – but of course there’s a charge for it. Being an author is expensive. Most of us in this field are saving for expensive items like editing and book covers. While we put out a lot for these ($300+ for editing and anywhere from $50 up for covers) we make very little in royalties – even as a self published author a lot of people take their share first. I don’t have the money to help in most situations but I can say – hey come put your stuff on my site and I’ll post them. One post – if it’s sent to me in an organized fashion – takes very little time and effort on my part. If it takes very little effort and it helps people, then why not do it? So I do.
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When I first saw the topic for the week, writing rituals, I had to stop and think. I don’t have any writing rituals. I know that writing a book takes work—it’s not magic (darn it!). But I have trouble thinking of it as a job to do every day. I’ve let my dreams fizzle without intending to. Anyway, because I have no writing rituals of my own, I looked up the topic and found this great article in a 2015 
writing matter and then I back off. Jennifer asks in this point, if you were a bestselling author, would you put your writing “off all the time or would you site down every day and write?” Wow. I really want to follow through on this point!