Monday, June 11, 2012

Wisdom from a Writer's Conference: Writing a Series

The next class I attending at the LDStoryMakers conferences was:

Writing a Series: Telling the Same Story Again, and Better, and Totally Different by Dan
Wells


What I learned:


Repeat what readers like - but in a new way. Make sure you correctly identify what the readers liked in the first one. Use a different story/character arc for each book in the series but use similar elements.

There will be one character arc for each book in the series - and then one over all arc that covers the whole series. It is not necessary to know the overall arc before beginning to write the series - but it helps a lot. Each individuals book character arc will contribute and bring you closer to the over all arc.

Dan Wells also talked about his seven plot points and that you can have either an up or down character arc.

How I Plan to Apply it:


My current WIP (and the one I shelved in favor of it) is a series. I am planning out my character arcs and my overall arc. But I won't be outlining all the books. I have a general idea of the overall story but I am going to focus on one book at a time. I read/learned elsewhere that it is important for each book in a series to be self contained and be able to stand on its own. Especially the first one.

I am excited to try my hand at writing a series.

2 comments:

  1. Sounds exciting! I like the advice of writing an overall arc and an arc for each character. I recently read a book, the first in a series, that had no arc for the character. The character doesn't grow or change in the book and there was no resolution because it is assumed it continues. Even in a series, the first book has to have a resolution of some kind or... it isn't complete.

    Good luck with your plotting! :)

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  2. Neat approach to character and plot arcs. Thanks!

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