On Writing: Series
I'm not teaching a workshop on writing series next weekend at Valley Forge RWA (I keep typing Valley Ridge...that was one of my series which actually does fit into this blog post LOL), but I have in the past. It turns out that I've written a lot of series. And most of them weren't intentional.
Yes, I'm an accidental series writer.
It all started with the first book I sold to Silhouette Romance. Do You Hear What I Hear? was the story of a mother with a hearing impaired daughter. I set it on Perry Square...a real area in Erie. Only I added my own businesses to it (the real ones are lovely). When I finished, I wondered what happened to everyone else on the Square and...well, I started thinking about a designer who needed legal help and a lawyer who needed a fiancé fast...and discovered A Day Late and a Bride Short. Then... Well, my Perry Square series ended up with eight books in it. Erie even got their own royalty in that series. (I think my town has everything...except maybe royalty, so I gave us that! LOL)
That need to know what happens next...it's a writer's curse. But it's a reader thing, too. I can't tell you how many times a reader has asked for another book in a series. More than that, specific character's stories. It's one of the biggest compliments a writer can get.
I wrote Pip's story, Carry Her Heart, then I wrote another book, These Three Words, set in that same "world." And then, in the middle of the book, I found Pip's daughter come into the chapel and cry and I realized that after I left Pip and Ned in their happily-ever-after, something happened. I needed to know what...so I wrote Hold Her Heart.
I work to make every book can stand alone, but readers can frequently tell that there's another book in the series. I love when someone discovers there are more books and feel glee.
So about writing....One of the biggest writing tools an author has is the question, What If? Those two words have become every book I've written. But in addition to that question, another questions that fuels my writing is What Next? That's the question that fuels my series.
Back to Pip...here's the thing, every book I write has held the promise of the happily-ever-after. Even when something hard happens in their life. I like to think in that way, my fiction represents real life. Bad things happen...but we can find our way back to happy.
I think that's why I can move from Romantic Comedy to my more emotional Romance + stories, to Cozy Mysteries. All of them answer that What If question and many answer What Next. And every single one of them has a happily-ever-after.
Holly
PS I have a handy-dandy list of series in order on my website here Holly's Series.
PS It's a sales palooza week. (Publishers just send me notices...I have no control most of the time and just like to pass them on.)
Hold Her Heart
Just One Thing
Everything But...series
Fairly Human
