Starting a New Series

April 8, 2024 / Uncategorized, Writing Tips / 13 COMMENTS

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

It’s been a while since I started writing a new series. Late-2018 was the last time, actually. The reason I don’t start new series all the time is because it’s a heck of a lot more work than continuing already-established series.  It’s also why I’ve only written one standalone novel. If you’re writing a series, most of the world-building work has been done early on, along with character development for the principle characters. It’s also so much easier to write about characters you’re very familiar with. The books almost write themselves.

Why do it, then? For me, it comes down to a couple of different reasons. One is simply that I had an idea that I thought might work for a new series. For another, it’s the realization that two of my current series have 20 or more books in them. It makes sense to continue adding series in case others need to come to an end.

There are tons of considerations for starting out a series. You’ll need ingredients like conflict, character arcs, settings, character development, and more. If you’re a cozy mystery writer, here’s a post on starting out a new cozy series.

Here are just a few additional things to remember along the way:

Start a series bible. This will save you so much work later. Every time you describe a character, add the description to the bible. Got a character who hates coffee and drinks tea instead? Add it to the bible. You’ll really manage to keep your inconsistencies down.

Make sure book one is good. This might sound flippant, but it’s really not. I don’t usually use a developmental editor, but I have for the first books in my series. It’s worth the money, in my opinion. Because if book one isn’t good, who’s going to stick around for the rest of the series?

Make sure your cover for book one is good.  Get a professional designer unless your design skills are top-notch. For the rest of your series to be a success, you need to ensure you’ve got readers. And readers definitely judge books by their covers. It’s also important to remember that the cover will need to have elements in future books in the series to indicate they’re in the same series. A professional designer can help you with these recurring elements.

Really weigh whether a cliffhanger at the end of book one is worth it.  Unless you’re rapidly releasing a series, it probably isn’t worth making readers upset.

These are just a few things to consider, so what would you add to the list? How much planning do you do when starting a new series? Do you write in series, or write standalones?

 

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

  1. Cliffhangers are annoying.
    Some authors do continue series that should've ended several books earlier. Better to start something new and fresh.
    I probably could've done better keeping track of things in my series. When writing the fourth book, I had to go back to the other books to refresh my memory.

  2. Thanks for your thoughts on starting a new series, Elizabeth. It does mean a whole lot of work, and it means convincing readers that this new series is good, and different enough from your other series to be worth reading, if that makes sense. For me, it's a balance between making the two (or more) series distinct enough to be separate, but similar enough that regular readers will love both (unless you're diving into another sub-genre, which is a completely different matter!).

  3. Good tips! I've got a new series starting new week too. It's a spinoff, which makes it easier because the setting is there as are some of the characters.
    I can't imagine writing a series without a series bible – life saver!

  4. I'm transcribing a second series; this is taking me a long time because it's a lot of installments and I wanted all of it written before I released it so I could be sure everything worked out. (It's SFF, and there was a lot of world-building I needed to "see" in action.) Yes to some kind of tracking document to keep everyone in place.

    My first installment doesn't exactly end on a cliffhanger, but it does hint, via one of the supporting characters, that there's more going on than just the heroine's need to prove herself in a hostile environment (which is what most of the book focused on). The idea is to make people curious, but not to make them feel like they're essentially reading part one of a longer book. There's a place for that–book two in a trilogy, ha!–but that's a big risk right up front.

    1. Smart to make sure everything worked before releasing the first book in the installment! It sounds like you might be doing a rapid release (maybe?), in which case I think cliffhangers are totally allowable! Worse if readers have to wait a year or more in between, ha.

  5. Hi Elizabeth – I admire you … but can quite see the sense (not the need, necessarily) in starting a new series when the idea is sitting in your head – waiting to get out and onto paper. Your advice re notes in the bible on each part of the series – so essential. A wise post for newbies … cheers Hilary

  6. A series Bible is so important. For my series, I also mapped out what each character was doing each month of the year since the stories overlapped while moving forward in time.

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