The Inside Scoop on Writing a Series
I’d like to say I sit down at my computer and the words flow in an endless stream from my mind. Unfortunately, it would not be the truth. The reader has so many choices these days.
I listen or read no less than 125 books a year. Rarely do I find one 
I wouldn’t recommend. I mostly read mysteries, cozy mysteries and a thriller now and then.
A long time ago I realized to be a good writer, I needed to be an avid reader. Any artistic endeavor, requires a prying minds. I bet you would have a difficult time writing a cookbook if you didn’t cook, hadn’t learned the names of the procedures you need to make the creation, and were not an omnivore.
The same goes with sewing. You need to love material and texture, know all or most of the stitches, and become proficient at collars, cuffs, and buttonholes. I could go through twenty more hobbies, but you get my drift.
So it is with writing. Although there are two kinds of writers, plotters and pantsers
.
A plotter is a writer who takes the time to outline the entire book. They know pretty much know how their book will unfold; they’ve worked out the beginning, middle and end of their work in progress.
A pantser takes little time to work out who will do what, or how the plot will unfold. The paint by number approach.
At one time I used only the pantser method. I started with a thought no longer than a sentence or a scene and wrote a book from it.
Once I decided to put my effort into series writing, I needed to be more precise about what a character did from novel to novel. It doesn’t work for your protagonist to love toasted cheese sandwiches and be petrified of heights in one book and hate toasted cheese and love zip lining in the next.
In other words, you can’t rely on your memory in the third book of what your characters liked and disliked from book one. (hint: readers remember everything. Believe me, if you don’t remember. they will.)
Next Sunday, we’ll talk about a blend between pantser
and plotter and learn more of what it takes to author a series.
The second book in the Arizona Summers Series came out two weeks ago and I am writing daily on number three. The Wedding Cake Murder and The High Steaks Murder are available for sale on Amazon or you can always read them free with Kindle Unlimited.
I plan to write the third book of the Kate Nash Mystery Series this year, but as with the other one, you can read Finding Lizzy Smith, Who’s Roxy Watkins? and The Untimely Death of Ivy Tucker free through Kindle Unlimited.
Have a great week. Stay safe and VOTE
