Welcome to your Sunday Musings, we're always thrilled to
have you visit.
As you know we're musing on series this month and Chuck
Bowie is asking:
When writing a series, how much detail (of the original
plot, continuing characters) do you re-visit in subsequent episodes: Books 2,
3, 4...?
I believe, when thinking about detail and characters in
subsequent episodes of a series, we're treading on a somewhat personal
approach. I've read series, for example, where the same dozen characters
'inhabit' every novel. I can't do that, or at least, I haven't succeeded to
date. When I create a series, I create their attending (no pun intended) world.
In many cases, I try to make it much like the real world, since I write
contemporary thrillers. So, just as in the real world, characters come and go.
If we look at Murder, She Wrote, all the villagers would be dead and poor
Angela would be all alone, wondering why folks don't visit. (It's because they
were all murdered, Angela!)
So, I keep a very small core of characters, and others come
and go, as the plot dictates.
And, since Life is Change, my characters tend to evolve.
This is a good thing, but one cannot expect to have a man seeking redemption,
as my guy Donovan is, be conscienceless in the first half of Three Wrongs, and
to still be remorseless in Book 4. People change, and their actions and
interests must change.
That said, the series is called Donovan: Thief For Hire, so
our Gentle Reader can surely expect someone to get hired to steal. We have some
measure of constancy, and some change. It's the way of the world, folks, even in
my novels!
In my series I will try to drop reminders about who the
secondary characters are, and I might refer to previous events in passing, like
anyone would in real life, but I don't try to do a full recap of the previous
book. I guess I have some expectation that the reader will begin with the first
book, though I did get a nice review on Amazon from someone that couldn't get
past the rough scene in the first chapter of Forging Day but still bought the
sequel, Family Values. She read that, went on to read the companion book to
Forging Day (which takes place before Family Values) and then finally picked up
Forging Day. It's not how I would expect someone to read it, but it worked for
her.
I found I had to revisit any details about events that were
not discussed in the book. So really it was anything that happened in the first
book that pertained to the plot of the second book. I did this either in
narrative or in flashbacks to explain relationships between continuing
characters and in conversation when an event is not understood for the reader.
I tried very hard not to give too much detail, but I wanted to catch up the
reader on the history of these events and relationships with the characters. My
feeling is that the author needs to give the basic details of the first novel
so someone can read this one without having the need to read the first novel.
Yet, of course, you can’t give everything, so you pick and choose and
generalize so the reader gets the basic gist of what happened. It’s like the
previously’s on TV for a show. So in the first chapter a lot of the end of the
first book was used to familiarize new readers to the story.
For example: Though Jennifer is the main character of the
second book, when Carolyn is introduced in the second book their relationship
in the first one is discussed. It is completely different from the first book
so readers of the first one will be surprised. But new readers who have no idea
of what their relationship was earlier need to be given their history. Then
they will understand the change and be aware of the dynamics of the two girls’
friendship.
Sunday's Child is the
first in my series of novels set in the Regency era. Monday's Child will be
published in Spring, 2016 and I have nearly finished Tuesday's Child, which I
shall submit soon.
In each standalone novel, some characters from Sunday's
Child take part. Monday's Child introduces three sisters, Georgianne, Helen and
Barbara. Georgianne is the heroine in Sunday's Child, and Helen is the heroine
in my new release, Monday's Child. The heroine in Tuesday's Child, my
work-in-progress, is Harriet, a minor character from Sunday's Child. She is
helped by Georgianne, who plays a minor but important part in the story.
Of course, ideally I'd love for everyone to have read my
whole series and remember all of them perfectly :-). However, I am always
trying to attract new readers, so I want to make it as easy as possible to
start with any of the four books. Since my series, Novels of Aleyne, is science
fiction, I have to include enough details about my aliens, the Aleyni, the
culture, political situation, and whatever, for the book to make sense. In
addition, although each novel features a different main character, the ones
from previous novels keep re-appearing, and so I need to include enough details
about their life situation to date for what I'm currently writing to make
sense.
Of the four novels, the one with the most “recap” is Broken
Bonds. The entire first chapter, which is about 5,000 words, is basically a
retelling of the first novel in the series from the point of view of Brad
Reynolds rather than from Keth's, the main character from Relocated.
For my upcoming series, Serpents and Flame, each book more
or less directly follows its predecessor. My sequel picks up roughly a week
after the first book ends. The same follows for the third book. Without reading
the first book, you would have no clue what was going on or who people were.
Some people write a series where, really, the plots are so singular that they
could be read as standalones. For that I think of Sherlock Holmes; you have a
hazy idea of how the stories connect, but really you don’t have to read A Study
in Scarlet to understand The Adventure of the Speckled Band (as long as you
have an idea of who Holmes and Watson are, at least). Mine are more of just a
really long story broken up into volumes. A core group of maybe six characters
appear in each book and have a central role in the plot, and then a larger
group of secondary characters fall in and out. Everything in the latter
installments is grounded in things from Book One.
For me, a series, by its nature, means a continuous tie or
multiple ties throughout all the books. Not only do I utilize continuing
characters, but each book in the series advances my overall series arc. To do
this, I have to bring in bits and pieces of previous plots or reappearance of
characters. Because my PSY-IV Team books focus on different couples in each
installment, the continuing character reappearance is vital. Not only does it
give my readers a touchstone as they move through the series, but it helps to
develop characters that may find themselves as the focus of their own story. On
the flip side of this, I try not to revisit previous story elements if they
have no impact on the current story. For example, if in Book 3 you mention the
characters from Book 1 and how they got together, it could be a simple sentence
of two, just enough to make the reader who’s been with you from day one nod
their head in recognition and continue along, while the reader just joining you
may make a mental note to go back and check out the story behind that comment.
But only if their names come up for a significant reason, and their appearance
fits in with the current story, otherwise you don’t want to be in Book 6,
trying to recap the previous five stories and possibly pushing your readers out
of the current story.
Character details must continue throughout the series. The history must continue. As for other details or incidents from the
previous books, that depends on the situation.
Where the stories in several novels are following a continuing line, the
earlier information is important. For
example, the hunt for stolen armaments began in FIRE PLANET, continued in
JUNGLE ASSAULT, and finished in CALL TO ARMS, books 7, 8, and 9 in the Star
Commandos series. Details which impact
on later stories must be recalled to the reader's mind in those newer
works. Those which deeply affect a
character or characters must always be present throughout the series.
MJ LABEFF, New Mainstream author
This depends on whether or not the original plot or
information regarding the continuing characters is needed to move the story or
characters forward in subsequent books. Readers may need a bit of reminding but
this brings us back to last week’s Sunday Musings where we talked about
planting enough facts and actions in early episodes to sow the seeds for actions
in subsequent novels. In my series the
Last Cold Case, I’ve found opportunities for the homicide detective and FBI
agent to discuss previous cases, finding it important for two reasons. The
first is to remind readers about those cases that had placed the homicide
detective in grave danger, illustrating her obsessive and willing to
risk-it-all, rogue attitude which makes the FBI agent a by-the-rules kind of
guy absolutely mad, but somehow they manage to work together and even manage to
find their happily ever after. The second is to pique the interest of a reader
who may have picked up the series in the middle and is now intrigued just
enough to go back and read the previous books. When writing a series much of
this is organic, the information about the original plot and characters seems
to just happen while writing subsequent books, and I think that’s because it is
integral information needed to move the story forward.
In my developing series Adventures of the Half-Dozen, which
are stand-alone books, I have mentioned, in passing, a couple happenings that
are told in detail in the previous book(s), but it is not necessary to have
read that book to feel the current story is not complete. However, since they take place in the same
location, the school, stores involved, friends met previously, and maybe an
incident or two, are briefly mentioned, but not necessarily fully detailed.
For instance, in All Because of Chickens there is a complete
description of when Sam saved his chickens from a hawk attack. In the sequel, Lessons from the Sheepfold
(due out this fall/winter), it is just mentioned as: “…otherwise, if you hadn’t
deterred that hawk last month, there would be eleven hens out there on the
steps instead of twelve!” Sam felt a
shudder shake his body as he remembered his fight with the hawk.
I guess it is a way to let the reader know there is a
previous story, and something about it, if the current tale is captivating
enough he or she would like to read another adventure of the same characters.
Dear reader, thank you again for joining us and we’d love to
hear from you. Keep smiling and have a fun week. Never stop believing. See you
next Sunday…nothing better than being cozy in bed with some Musings.
If you have a question or comment you’d like us to muse upon, do not hesitate
to contact me Christine Steeves-Speakman at MuseChrisChat@gmail.com
