Next Please!

Okay, so you have finally finished that next novel and you have clicked the submit button to the publisher. What next? Put your feet up, go and finish decorating the house or do you crack on with your next manuscript. Those of us who are locked in the ‘series mindwarp’ have to do the latter. Why? Because this minimizes your potential of ‘losing the thread’ on your characters such as their jobs, their thoughts and the name of their pet goldfish!

Stephen King, that human horror, action and fantasy novel factory, has two manuscripts on the go in different stages. This means that as one sits in its raw state on his Mac, the other sits in its completed state in the drawer, ready for the ‘once over’ of a final edit.

Writing a series can be like a morning commute, you see the same old faces and you all travel the same journey. Some even fight their way like a rampaging Viking, to get the same seat everyday, he may well be your ongoing antagonist. But, the thing is, is that you see them. They are not strangers to you. Well, you may not talk to these characters, but you know their traits, what they do on the journey and maybe what they even like to eat and drink. Maybe you even fantasize about them – we won’t go there!

So these are the regular daily doses that should be applied when writing a series. To keep a thread on my main characters, I have a pocket in a wallet folder containing everything about them. So that when it comes for them to talk about their loved ones or their role, it is all there. Did Character C have a long lost great Aunty Flo who left him enough inheritance to buy his luxury pad in the Barbican and his Yacht in the Seychelles? Check the file, no that’s Character D. There, easy!

So the moral of all this is, when writing a series, there is no break in between manuscripts, especially if you have an ongoing plot such as a certain teenage wizard, where both character knowledge and quest are paramount for the series to work and then earn billions!