As promised last month, here's some more scoop from MileHiCon in Denver. Fantasy
tends to come in series, and while some series just keep getting better, others
drop off. How does an author keep a series going and keep it interesting?
Several authors of successful series discussed this at the convention.
One
issue series authors face is how to bring up recap material to remind readers of
what happened in previous books or of anything else they need to remember about
how this world works. M.H.
Bonham, author of the Swords of Destiny series, said that even in
the first novel in a series, characters have a history and a backstory that the
author has to deal with. In later books, that backstory may be what happened in
the earlier books, but authors can deal with it the way they would any character
history or backstory -- without an info dump. Carrie Vaughn, author of
the Kitty Norville series, said she tries to show the effects of what
happened previously without necessarily going into explanations. "To me, the
sign of a great book is when you can pick up a later book in the series and be
interested enough to go back and read the rest," she said. Katherine Kurtz, author of
the Deryni series, said that some things do have to be explained in
each book as if it's the first time, "but this is probably more boring to the
writer than to the reader."
Not
every series was planned to be that way, and that can create some problems when
the first book is successful enough to generate demand for a series. Mario Acevedo, author of
the Felix Gomez series, said he wrote the first book on its own, and
then his agent requested a series. "Once you build a world, you're stuck with
it," he said. The details and character baggage from that first book have to
follow throughout the series. Vaughn also didn't plan a
series because she wasn't a fan of series. When her book sold and spawned a
series, she decided to make her protagonist, Kitty, grow and change with each
book, and she gave Kitty a goal that never gets resolved. "It helps if you start
with a character who naturally gets into trouble a lot," she said. "Then they
have to learn things from their old problems and apply them to new problems."
How do authors keep track of all the details in an ongoing series? Kurtz keeps detailed
bibles of series information, including timelines, character lists and family
charts. "I wish I'd kept a series bible," Vaughn said. "Without it,
when you get to book ten, keeping track of what happened is harder." She keeps
computer files of things like a series chronology and lists of pack members.
Keeping an ongoing series fresh and interesting can be a challenge -- and
sometimes the author is in more danger of getting bored than readers are. Acevedo uses different
settings in each book as a way of making each book distinct, but said there are
drawbacks to that. "One thing that makes a series strong is the relationships
among characters, and you can't do that when you're changing locations with each
book." Vaughn sets a
challenge for herself with each book that may or may not be apparent to readers.
For instance, book five in her series, Kitty and the Dead Man's
Hand, was written as a screwball comedy. One thing she said authors
shouldn't do, though, is make characters stop behaving in established ways just
to serve the plots or do crazy plots. A series falls down when the characters
don't seem real anymore. Kurtz kept her series fresh by working with two
different timelines in the same world and jumping back and forth between the
timelines. She's still in the same series but working with totally different
characters and storylines.
Those tactics must be working because the authors said they aren't bored yet!
Shanna Swendson writes "Fairy Tales for Modern Times" and is
the author of the Enchanted, Inc. series about a Texan in New York
City, a magical NYC. Visit her website or blog for more information.
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