No matter which of these camps you fall into, there's no questioning the fact that the series as a literary concept is here to stay. It's more of a cultural thing in the UK - TV programmes are more autered, like a film might be. In order to make the middle books of your series move satisfyingly towards the penultimate and final books: Make the middle books of your series have their own central arcs, but also use them to illustrate important details about your characters, their histories and their challenges. If you look hard enough, you should find self-contained narratives within the larger plot. 4. Create a compelling central conflict for your series, be it an obstacle between a character and final romantic fulfillment (in a romance series) or an inevitable showdown with a villain.
While committing to a series is a big step, and can be overwhelming at times, it's important to remember why you decided to do it in the first place. So you've answered all the above questions and come to a decision: writing a series is the right choice for you.
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Overall, a series' themes must weave together to create a broad, relatively complex tapestry. Place secondary obstacles in your main character’s path to getting what they want that lead back to the central conflict. But each novel reads more like a standalone piece, and the three do not necessarily need to be read in order. If not, why?
But the ‘why’ of their motivations can be teased out gradually. Before you launch into writing your spec-fic series, you need to lay some groundwork for your world-building. Familiarise yourself with your story's sense of place as much as possible before you start writing in earnest. Unless you plan to produce it yourself, people aren't going to read more than the pilot and perhaps a mini bible. All rights reserved, central premise or conflict of your series, organised structure will help you keep track, brushes between your main character and an antagonist, C.S. If you tend not to plot usually, this can work for a novel. Will readers be disappointed or will they understand the purpose behind any open-ended aspects? First things first: before you do anything else, you need to decide if a series is the right choice for the story you want to tell.
If there isn't, the book doesn't really qualify as a self-contained narrative. The central premise or conflict of your series is the main tension or unknown that needs to be solved. The next thing you need to do is answer the following questions about your plot: These questions will help you identify any major issues with your plot outline so far. For now, ask yourself these questions from the outset to see if your plot is suited to a series. Pilot 3 should be done by Xmas. What will happen to put this change in motion? (Tension is one of the most important driving forces in fiction, and without it, your series is likely to fall rather flat.
Lewis avoids stasis by showing his central characters as children at the start of the Narnia series. Does it raise enough questions? Some might grin at the thought of spending multiple books exploring the world and story they've created. Because they're deeply invested in the political developments of Westeros? Writing a novel is a big commitment. If readers are to stay with you for multiple books, you must create a setting rich enough to immerse them and complex enough to sustain their interest. Lewis’ fantasy novel, Create a secondary conflict and (at least partial) resolution for each novel in the series: A smaller rise and fall that is a miniature version of the larger rising and falling action of the entire series, Resolves every major conflict and plot arc, Uses language that conveys the sense of an ending –, Resonates with earlier incidents: You can even bring the story full circle to the start of the first book in the series (as Tolkien does when Frodo returns to the Shire in. To make your character arcs satisfying throughout your series: Remember that each book should stand on its own to a degree. In one of Rowling’s books, a cruel and vindictive teacher is a lesser villain, while an encounter with the main villain looms on the horizon. While it's wise to concentrate on getting readers invested in the main characters you introduce from the outset, you can't expect them to stay engaged through multiple books that only involve the same band of characters.