Happy Thursday, good people of the blogosphere! I hope you're all looking forward to some lovely time over the weekend and have huge plans for the week of the fourth! I've been knee-deep in the
Mystic series this week and hope to roll
Melody and
Coralie out very soon. Fact checking can certainly keep one on their toes! Speaking of things to beware of when writing a series, that's the topic for today! So grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!
As regular readers of my blog know, I'm the author of the Mystic series. It's about six women who come together to prevent the end of the world happening. What they're fighting is birthed from humanity; the surprise of the series will appear in the last book,
Markaza.
Some of the things I did to prepare for this series:
- Write character bios.
- Make a timeline.
- Decide on locations, issues, and strengths.
- Keep a chart of things that happen during the series (like visions Markaza has of the future) for quick reference.
If you're writing a series, these items are a must-have. They'll save you from having to go back through your previous work to fact-check. You can't contradict yourself if you plan to build a world and characters your readers will believe.
If you don't go into great detail with your characters' appearances, you'll not only leave a lot to the imagination of the reader, you also won't have to check back very often to make sure you're being consistent.
How much is too much?
Good planning is essential. It'll get you everywhere.
I left off the Mystic series last year around December, but Melody is singing to have her story heard, and Coralie is acting like a pain in my ass. They're both scrambling, once again, to get out of my head and onto the page.
I hope this helps. A series isn't something to thumb your nose at. It takes a lot of careful consideration and work to make it interesting.
Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!
Jo
