Wringing Out the Changes

The best stories change over time.  Why bother reading something when you already know what it says?

What I'm talking about is the popularity of the multi-book series.  Sure, there are truly great one-off stories - To Kill A Mocking Bird is a prime example.  It's unique and wonderful.  But if you examine what people are reading today, you'll see a number of series and this is particularly true in my preferred genre of sci-fi/fantasy for young adults.  Ever wondered why?

Humans have a balanced need for the expected and the unexpected.  It's built into us, it's how we operate, and it comes through in our reading habits. We may read the same author over a series of books, because we like the author's style and we come to expect certain things in those books. But each book is different - that's the unexpected part, right?  We like surprise.  We would never read the same book by an author over and over again. Boring.  But we like to read a continuation of a favorite story, don't we?  The Harry Potter books, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Aubrey/Maturin novels, and Amanda Hocking's trilogies are all fine examples.  We read these series because they balance the expected - the characters, settings, themes, and tones that we love - with the unexpected narrative twists. If the authors made more of them, we'd read those too, no question.

The best stories change in ways that fascinate, that are fun or interesting; they change in ways that make us want to talk about them.

So why am I spending time telling you about this?  Well, it's simply because I am currently working on the second book of a trilogy. And I'm working on the second book before the first book is even published because I want to make sure I manage to balance the tone, maintain my characters and settings, manage to keep the expected in both books while cranking out a story that is new and fresh and unexpected.  The two have to connect on some level. It's not as easy as I thought. To make matters worse, I'm already sowing the seeds of the plot for book three in book two, building a bridge that will cross the theme of all three stories. Fun but challenging.

It all comes down to the above: finding ways to forge a stories about a single concept (theme, characters etc.) that change in ways that delight and make people want to talk about them. I want to write great books and have fun, that's all.

I would love to hear from writers that have produced multi-book stories (no matter the genre) and learn about their experiences. How do you make things come together?  Feel free to drop me a line here.