Series Arc

My mother's church had a cake social today and ... well, I had 2 cupcakes. :( My butt is ashamed. My tummy is astounded. That has nothing to do with writing...Or maybe it does. Dieting does not feed my muse. LOL And after a five-day dry spell I finally feel like writing again. 

Anyway, not one to waste time, I spent Saturday morning on the phone with one of my best writing buds, Paula Matter. I have come up with a really good single title romantic suspense idea...

Or maybe the nugget of an idea.

And Paula is helping me bring shape and life to the series arc. Specifics of the individual stories won't begin to take root until I know I have the arc for the series.

So, right now, you're saying...Really? You have NO IDEA what the individual books will be about. Well, I have an inkling. When it comes to a series -- a kind of important, single title series -- I wanted to get my series ducks in a row first. 

Why? 

Two reasons. First a good friend of mine wrote a book that did so well that her publisher came back and said, let's make this a series. With a first book written, she'd limited her options of what could be in books two and three. She said if she'd known this was going to be a series she would have taken the time to plot it out.

I took that like a foreshadowing in my own career! LOL

Coming up with an arc first means I can put things in books 1 and 2 that foreshadow book 3. But also I know what not to do, what doors not to close in book 1, so I have some stuff to write about in books 2 and three. I can come up with bigger themes. I can create a complicated plot. I can torment my people but good. :)


Second, I'm a firm believer that if you want something to be really, really good, you have to think it through. What seems like a nice, tight, interesting...compelling, even...story line might not seem so fantastic after a good night's sleep, or a week away from it.

Thinking gives you a chance to find the holes as well as stumble upon (or actually create) really great plot twists, story lines, characters...and the ever important conflicts.

The longer I ponder something, the better the chance I will come up with something magnificent. And that just tickles my fancy. LOL

I'll be talking about plotting a trilogy at the Pennwriters Conference in Lancaster on May 16-18 or something...Wait, let me go find a link... http://www.pennwriters.org/prod/

Join us. We can be lots of fun. :)

Happy Reading...
susan meier