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Writing a Series

So, I have a question for anyone on here who has written a series, particularly one that is a continuing story and not several stories linked together.

Did you draft the entire series at once and then go back and rewrite/revise, or did you draft and rewrite/revise each book individually? I'm suspecting for almost everyone the latter is the case. However, I'm thinking it would be better for me to deal with the entire series as a cohesive whole, instead of drafting, rewriting and revising each book as a seperate unit. Any advice?
 

Malik

Auror
Personally, I think you'd lose your mind trying to revise multiple books at the same time. Right now I'm editing down the first book in my series and even minor tweaks are having a butterfly effect on my sequels. It's a Rubik's Cube.

But if you can do it in one fell swoop, do it. There's no correct way to write fantasy and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

On a personal note, I read your fight scene. You have tremendous talent. If you were to bang out nine hundred pages in a row at your current level of craftsmanship, not even going for style but just typing till your hands bleed every day until you hit THE END at Book Three, and then go back and revise, starting on Book One Page One and working out the kinks of the whole series for another couple of years, and then start back at the beginning, revising again -- because you'll need to -- and then do it once more with a good editor, you'd end up knocking out a couple of million words all in all over the next 5-6 years.

It would take some doing -- that's a thousand words a day, which is steep, so you may be looking at ten years to pull this off -- but brother, you'd have some chops when you were done. I hope you do it, because I would read the hell out of whatever you came up with at that point.

Look around. The genre needs more people who have put that kind of time and effort in.
 
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Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
I'm writing a series, and I'm taking something of an in between approach. On the one hand, I've got the first book done, painfully cut down to 125k, revised, and off to an editor, but before I finished, revised ? times, and sent to an editor, I also wrote the ending of the trilogy, and I'm writing the end of book two as we speak, and fleshing out certain concepts to make sure that I'm not leaving out important seeds in book 1. I've already discovered one since sending to an editor, very small blurb in book 1, but important oh, about 800 pages later. And the big thing, if it gets popular, it will be a great debate point for readers, with a distant pay off, LOL.

As Malik said, there's no right answer. One thing, if looking at a freelance editor, that 500k word bomb is gonna cost, LOL. And on a first novel, a paid set of professional and objective eyes might just be worth it. Not that you'd have to send in all 500k, heh heh.

Do what you feel works. But heck, I edit what I wrote one day the next, and reread constantly, so I'm not going to finish more than 5-10k words without giving it a pass here and there. I usually get back into a POV by reading/editing the POV's storyline.
 

troynos

Minstrel
I'd say do a pretty tight outline for the entire series. Where you expect characters to evolve, where they end up, major points, etc.. but leave yourself room for organic changes as you write because as we know, characters have a habit of deciding they want to do something that you hadn't originally planned.
 

TWErvin2

Auror
If it is a continuing story, would it be more like a trilogy than series?

Each book, even thought a main storyline may continue, should have a complete and satisfactory story arc. Otherwise it could be just like taking a 300,000 word epic and dividing it into three books or a 400,000 word epic and dividing it into four books.

Some of it may depend on the route to publication you hope to take. If the traditional route, seeking a publisher, complete one novel and start sending it off, then work on completing the next while it's seeking a home. If you intend to self-publish, some authors prefer to get all of the books in like a trilogy finished so that they can be released in quick succession. Even with that, I would edit/revise/complete one book at a time.

There could be a concern that by the time you reach the end of book three, there is something that you want to change in book 1. I can tell you that pulling things out or adding things in isn't necessarily that easy. There is the ripple effect, in that an event of significance will likely have an impact elsewhere in the novel, and making those changes could require more changes and ripples. The bigger project you attempt with this the more complex and daunting the task can end up being.

Those are my few thoughts. Good luck as you move forward, whatever route you take.
 
Personally, I think you'd lose your mind trying to revise multiple books at the same time. Right now I'm editing down the first book in my series and even minor tweaks are having a butterfly effect on my sequels. It's a Rubik's Cube.

But if you can do it in one fell swoop, do it. There's no correct way to write fantasy and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

On a personal note, I read your fight scene. You have tremendous talent. If you were to bang out nine hundred pages in a row at your current level of craftsmanship, not even going for style but just typing till your hands bleed every day until you hit THE END at Book Three, and then go back and revise, starting on Book One Page One and working out the kinks of the whole series for another couple of years, and then start back at the beginning, revising again -- because you'll need to -- and then do it once more with a good editor, you'd end up knocking out a couple of million words all in all over the next 5-6 years.

It would take some doing -- that's a thousand words a day, which is steep, so you may be looking at ten years to pull this off -- but brother, you'd have some chops when you were done. I hope you do it, because I would read the hell out of whatever you came up with at that point.

Look around. The genre needs more people who have put that kind of time and effort in.

Back when I had a writing habit, 1,500 words a day was about what I was able to reasonably manage. However, I didn't write daily. Typically I would write for about 3 days a week, spend the rest letting my inspiration replenish, reading, doing non-writing-related things. My mind needed the down time.

Ten years is about what I'm looking at for the series I'm writing. I'm not really basing that estimate on anything, it just sounds right to me. I'm planning 4 or 5 books. (the original plan was 4. However, once I started doing serious, detailed planning, and working out the subplots and stuff, I realized I might have to stretch it to 5. Anyway, the material I was planning on using for book 4 and the latter half of book 3 could use more developing the way I see it, but...I'll see how things go.) If I estimate each book at an average of 130,000 words (again, not basing this on anything except the fact that I've written 80,000-90,000 word works before and I have a feel for how much 130,000 words is)...5 books is 650,000 words.

So, 52 weeks in a year, 3 days a week, 1,500 words a day means 234,000 words in a year. 650,000 words for the whole series means I could be done with at least the first drafts of all five books in under 3 years.

I ought to add a year to account for writer's block, backtracking, the flu, distractions, and death in the family. A little under 4 years. Sounds pretty reasonable to me, actually. Now, it'll take me at least that long and probably much longer to get them rewritten and revised. For each book, if I'm being honest, probably twice the time it took me to write it. Putting me at about 12 years total for the whole project. 12 years is more than half the time I've been alive, so it's...a little intimidating.

I want to have the whole series written and revised before anything gets published or even submitted for editing, though. I want to have the freedom to go back and make changes earlier in the story until I'm satisfied with the whole of it.

Now that I'm articulating this, it's seeming to me that it's definitely best that I write them all first and then revise them all, rather than writing and revising each individually. But...it's nice to see how others do it.

Also, thanks for your very high praise of what you've read of my writing.
 
I'm writing a series, and I'm taking something of an in between approach. On the one hand, I've got the first book done, painfully cut down to 125k, revised, and off to an editor, but before I finished, revised ? times, and sent to an editor, I also wrote the ending of the trilogy, and I'm writing the end of book two as we speak, and fleshing out certain concepts to make sure that I'm not leaving out important seeds in book 1. I've already discovered one since sending to an editor, very small blurb in book 1, but important oh, about 800 pages later. And the big thing, if it gets popular, it will be a great debate point for readers, with a distant pay off, LOL.

As Malik said, there's no right answer. One thing, if looking at a freelance editor, that 500k word bomb is gonna cost, LOL. And on a first novel, a paid set of professional and objective eyes might just be worth it. Not that you'd have to send in all 500k, heh heh.

Do what you feel works. But heck, I edit what I wrote one day the next, and reread constantly, so I'm not going to finish more than 5-10k words without giving it a pass here and there. I usually get back into a POV by reading/editing the POV's storyline.

I relate. I always end up doing plenty of editing as I go. I am extremely prone to backtracking, which can make it hard to move forward.
 
I'd say do a pretty tight outline for the entire series. Where you expect characters to evolve, where they end up, major points, etc.. but leave yourself room for organic changes as you write because as we know, characters have a habit of deciding they want to do something that you hadn't originally planned.

I'm constructing a mental outline. Planning out the conflicts, relationships, major deaths, things like that. Writing it down makes it too concrete, though, leaves little room for organic growth.
Problem is, with a project this extensive, I can't have any better than a very foggy idea of what happens in book 4 when book 1 isn't even finished.
 

Malik

Auror
If you're writing like this at 24, then you could be a monster at 36 and you could change the world at 40. Put words in a row every day, keep reading, and never quit.
 
If it is a continuing story, would it be more like a trilogy than series?

Each book, even thought a main storyline may continue, should have a complete and satisfactory story arc. Otherwise it could be just like taking a 300,000 word epic and dividing it into three books or a 400,000 word epic and dividing it into four books.

Some of it may depend on the route to publication you hope to take. If the traditional route, seeking a publisher, complete one novel and start sending it off, then work on completing the next while it's seeking a home. If you intend to self-publish, some authors prefer to get all of the books in like a trilogy finished so that they can be released in quick succession. Even with that, I would edit/revise/complete one book at a time.

There could be a concern that by the time you reach the end of book three, there is something that you want to change in book 1. I can tell you that pulling things out or adding things in isn't necessarily that easy. There is the ripple effect, in that an event of significance will likely have an impact elsewhere in the novel, and making those changes could require more changes and ripples. The bigger project you attempt with this the more complex and daunting the task can end up being.

Those are my few thoughts. Good luck as you move forward, whatever route you take.

A trilogy is a series with exactly three books, a series just means multiple books, usually more than three because there's already a word for that, trilogy. Yes, it's a continuing story (the books couldn't stand alone) but each book has its own plot and arc of course.

When I think about the story, however, I think about it as one complete story, rather than 4 or 5 individual stories. I have the main plot and subplots that span the series worked out, but I'm still working on the details. I'm thinking it would be best to write it all at once, then revise it all at once, as if it were one story.

I do intend to traditionally publish. That's actually one of the reasons I want to write and finish all the books as one story. I've read far too many series where the first book was great, then, due to deadlines and publishers' expectations, the story went downhill fast and soon was no longer worth it. I figure there's a reason why the first book is typically the best of the series when it should be the opposite. I would like to be able to spend all the time I need on each book, as well as the freedom to backtrack and change earlier books if need be. I'm thinking the best way would be to write them all, revise the first and start looking for a home for it, and meanwhile work on revising the others...But I'm thinking rather far ahead.

However, no one seems to do it this way.
 

WooHooMan

Auror
If it is a continuing story, would it be more like a trilogy than series?

Trilogy is just a series with three parts. They're special because three is a magic number.

Anyways, if I have a story with a beginning, middle and end, I keep it to one book. My series tend to be the same characters (and/or setting) but different plots so planning the whole thing at once doesn't do me much good. Especially if the first story is a dud and I want to pull the plug on the series.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
We get quite a few novice authors through here with aspirations of writing long fantasy series. My recommendation, stick with the short stories at the outset. Learn the craft, learn how to complete a tale. Explore your world by writing about your world. 'Showcase' is littered with prologues and first chapters. Occasionally, I see a chapter two or three posted there. But rarely anything much higher.

For you, I would suggest participating in 'Top Scribe' - I'm about to post the next in that series, or signing up for Caged Maiden's Seafarer's Flash.

That said, I have been plugging away on a series of six novella's (35,000 - 45,000 words, or very roughly 100 - 130 pages) for several years now. At least that's what I tell myself. It might end up being a trilogy, or even a single monster tome. Whatever you call it, I'm on book five now, as part of my NaNo project. One thing I have learned: best not to release volume one of a trilogy or series into the world without having at least a rough draft of the last book in hand. All too often critical little things in later books necessitate changes to the first book.
 

Malik

Auror
I'm a teenager, actually.

**** it. I quit. Anyone want a website? Cheap.

J/K.

GO. TO. COLLEGE. Holy shit, man.

Write your ass off until you leave for college, and then write every spare moment the whole time you're there.

Major in English, or linguistics, or comparative lit, or theology; anything that forces you to read critically and write extensively.

Then get a professional writing gig with an editor whom you can't stand, who marks up everything you do. Bonus points if they do it in front of you while clicking their tongue disapprovingly, and it's even better, still, if they call you into their office a few times the first year to have long conversations with you involving extensive use of the word "frankly." And keep working on your series the whole time.

Do this thing. For the good of humanity, do this.
 
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We get quite a few novice authors through here with aspirations of writing long fantasy series. My recommendation, stick with the short stories at the outset. Learn the craft, learn how to complete a tale. Explore your world by writing about your world. 'Showcase' is littered with prologues and first chapters. Occasionally, I see a chapter two or three posted there. But rarely anything much higher.

For you, I would suggest participating in 'Top Scribe' - I'm about to post the next in that series, or signing up for Caged Maiden's Seafarer's Flash.

That said, I have been plugging away on a series of six novella's (35,000 - 45,000 words, or very roughly 100 - 130 pages) for several years now. At least that's what I tell myself. It might end up being a trilogy, or even a single monster tome. Whatever you call it, I'm on book five now, as part of my NaNo project. One thing I have learned: best not to release volume one of a trilogy or series into the world without having at least a rough draft of the last book in hand. All too often critical little things in later books necessitate changes to the first book.

^What I was talking about when I said people question your abilities when they learn you're young. I've completed many novel-length stories--they were terrible, mostly, but I have a good grasp of how a story works. Then again, you're right that writing a long series is a huge commitment not to be taken lightly.

You talk about the first few chapters of stories being posted in showcase, but nothing higher. I know why--I must have 30-40 novels I wrote the first few chapters for, but nothing higher. Several I got about halfway through. A few that I completed.

My mother keeps telling me I should write short stories, not because she thinks I'm incapable of anything more, but because she thinks the satisfaction and experience of completing something every now and then would help me.

I definitely agree about having a draft of the last book before submitting the first is a good idea.

And yeah, getting involved in challenges sounds fun!

Edit: Sorry if that first part came off as a little abrasive. I know you're trying to help. I just want to say, being young doesn't make you a novice any more than being old makes you an expert.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Teenagers can be in college...

College is overrated, live, write, live some more, write some more, keep at it. If college happens in the midst of that, meh, so be it. Drink a lot, heh heh. But hey, college keeps a lot of folks from counting as unemployed in the fed's numbers, LOL.

**** it. I quit. Anyone want a website? Cheap.

J/K.

GO. TO. COLLEGE. Holy shit, man.

Major in English, or linguistics, or comparative lit; anything that forces you to read critically and write extensively.

Then get a professional writing gig with an editor whom you can't stand, who marks up everything you do. Keep working on your series the whole time.

Do this thing. For the good of humanity, do this.
 

Malik

Auror
Teenagers can be in college...

College is overrated, live, write, live some more, write some more, keep at it. If college happens in the midst of that, meh, so be it. Drink a lot, heh heh. But hey, college keeps a lot of folks from counting as unemployed in the fed's numbers, LOL.

I respectfully disagree. The self-pubbed market is brimming with terrible writers -- we're talking books with there cat set over their, or for all intensive purposes -- who think that "the school of hard knocks" is enough, and who would be readable if they'd only gotten an education. Or, as is often the case, if they'd gotten an education but taken it seriously while they were there and learned how the language works and why.

I work with "educated" people every. Goddamned. Day. Who can't put together a coherent written sentence. And I see "authors" with zero grasp of language mechanics, publishing wincingly bad books, who have degrees.

Typing is not writing, any more than hammering is finish carpentry. Writing is a skilled trade, and English professors are master craftsmen who pass on the art. There are self-taught geniuses in every skilled trade, but your odds of success are much better if you get a master to teach you.

With this guy's talent, it would be criminal if he has the opportunity to get the education and the tools he needs to really be competitive, and he doesn't take it.
 
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T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
This conversation has taken a bit of a turn away from the original question, but it's worth continuing.

I also read your fight scene excerpt in the Showcase. I agree with Malik that it's quite good, even for someone with much more life experience. And, in present tense no less, which is somewhat unusual and shows a willingness to reach beyond the norm.

College may not help you directly with writing (though most colleges do offer some creative writing courses), but it may. It is like any other life experience, and you may find it useful. It all depends on you. However, when it really comes down to it, the only way to get better at writing is to write. Whatever else you're doing to satisfy the demands and expectations of life aren't really a primary concern for being a writer.

Go to college, or don't. You should probably make that decision independent of your writing aspirations. There are plenty of professional authors who did, and there are scores who did not. Steven King worked a horrible job at a hotel laundry, struggling to keep food on the table before he finally broke out with Carrie. Patricia Cornwell has a degree in English. John Grisham was a practicing lawyer. I'm certain each one of those authors would say their prior experiences inform and aid their writing.
 

Ankari

Hero Breaker
Moderator
TAS, the one common denominator is that they all went to college. Steven King graduated with a BA in English. He even worked as a teacher in highschool for some time (I think as an English teacher).

I went to college but never finished. To this day I intend to return to round off my experience/knowledge. One of the greatest benefits as a writer is constant feedback from a professional. Also, from what I've read, you can make some pretty decent connections that funnel through the same classes/college.

If it's within everyone's ability, I'd recommend completing a degree relevant to your chosen area of interest (meaning, you may want to take a physics degree with a minor in English if you're a sci-fi author).
 
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