One of the constant questions I've gotten over the years is, what are the keys to making a series successful?
If I had the answers to that, I'd be a millionaire. And yet I've had more series successes than failures.
For me, there are several key factors.
1. Characters, characters, characters.
Series are all about the characters that inhabit your book. Characters are what hooks your readers, what makes them care, and what brings them back, release after release. Your characters should, of course, be likable and engaging, but most of all, they should feel 'real.' Give them good points and bad, likes and dislikes, and a believable, sympathetic background. Remember to give them shades—no one likes someone who is always good or always right.
Most of all, don't be afraid to let them fail.
And don't forget your secondary characters! They're as vital as the main characters. They might not be on the page full time, but they must have a solid, believable life that readers can imagine runs along happily in the story's background. They must never be just props. In a couple of my series, it's been the side characters that readers have latched onto, not the main characters.
2. Conflict / Plot.
I put these two together because, right or wrong, that's how I view them. For me, conflict is the emotional pull & plot is the physical pull, and they are vital ingredients to any series (or any story, really). The key to series writing is to have three or four threads running simultaneously throughout the entire series. The first conflict would, of course, be the emotional / romance one, and if you want a successful story, then you never—NEVER—give the hero/heroine their happy ever after in the first book (even if they jump straight into sexy times in that first book). There must be logical, believable reasons for them to be kept apart from their HEA over the course of the series. Even when you do get them together, if the series continues, you need them to still face problems. Just don't let the 'will they/won't they' run on past its use-by date, or you will lose readers.
The second plot/conflict should be the overarching problem of the series—the one that the character needs to face/solve for happiness to be reached. It's the plotline that burbles along in the background, resurfacing a couple of times every book with new information that drives it forward / makes things worse. In the Lizzie Grace series, that question was, what was she running from, and what would she do when she finally had to face up to her past? Running alongside this was the conflict of how she (a witch) and Aiden (a werewolf) would ever get their HEA when werewolves and witches have a long history of conflict and when both know his pack would never accept her into the fold.
The third plot/conflict should be one that appears—and is solved—in each book. This gives each book a feeling of completeness while still driving the narration—and the reader—forward. Most of my books are murder mysteries at heart, even if centred around supernatural elements, so it's generally a murder needing to be solved that is the keystone around which everything else swirls for every book.
3. Setting
It doesn't matter where you set a story. It could be a quaint country town that just happens to be a werewolf reservation, a big city, or even off-world. It really doesn't matter. What does is making it believable and relatable. Readers have to understand your world. They need to be able to see it, smell it, and experience it. Setting plays as big a part in your story as the characters themselves, yet it should never overwhelm the actual story or the characters.
4. Fun!
This may or may not be a key element, but it's what I like in a story and what I tend to add to most of my series. I let the characters have fun. I let them be silly. I give them lighter moments to counter the many dark ones. These lighter moments also give the reader a break, which can be vital if your stories are darker in tone or subject.
5. Bonus tip!
Keep a journal of characters and settings if you're writing a series. Seriously, do it! There is nothing worse than having to backtrack through multiple past stories trying to uncover what color eyes a character had (yes, I have done this when I've forgotten to update my bible.) My bible isn't particularly flash—it's just word files (one for worldbuilding, one for characters) that I copy/paste information into when I'm editing. It doesn't matter how structured (or, in my case, unstructured) it is, as long as it's all in one place that's easy to find.
Keri Arthur
Keri Arthur, the author of the New York Times bestselling Riley Jenson Guardian series, has now written over fifty-five novels. She had 35 novels published with US publishers Random House & Penguin and is now fully self-published. She's won six Australian Romance Readers Awards for Favourite Scifi, Fantasy, or Futuristic Romance & has also won the Romance Writers of Australia RBY Award for Speculative Fiction. The Romantic Times also awarded her a Career Achievement Award for Urban Fantasy. Keri's also a wanna-be photographer, so when she's not at her computer writing the next book, she can be found somewhere in the Australian countryside taking random photos.
Check out Keri's website.
Her latest release is Wraith's Revenge, book 10 of the Lizzie Grace series.
You can’t run from the past forever…Lizzie Grace has finally returned to Canberra, the city where she grew up and a place that holds so many bad memories. Not only does she have to testify at her father’s trial, but also deal with her ex’s will and relatives unhappy that she’s inherited a good chunk of his assets.
Yet Canberra holds more than just memories of an unwanted marriage. It’s where her sister was murdered, and the man responsible was never caught.
Witches are once again being ritualistically sacrificed, and it holds terrible echoes of those past deaths.
As the murders draw closer to home, Lizzie finds herself in a race to hunt down the wraith of a man after the ultimate revenge…the soul of the woman who once escaped him.
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