Paul Whybrow
Full Member
One theory about reading is that people like a series of stories, which allows them to bond with the recurring characters. From the author's point of view, creating a book in a series allows loose ends, that may or may not be tied in later books. Cliffhangers may well entice readers to seek out the next book.
As I embark on my fifth Cornish Detective novel, I've got a few plot strands to draw upon from the preceding stories, including giving my protagonist a love life. I've previously carried over incidents from one book to another. For example, in my first novel, Who Kills A Nudist? a dishonest car mechanic died in a fire, trapped beneath a car. It looked like he'd caused the inferno himself, through careless use of a blowtorch flame and by storing an excess amount of petrol in unsuitable containers, but he was actually a victim of a serial killer whose identity was revealed in the second story, The Perfect Murderer.
To someone only reading Book 1, this victim's death appeared to be an everyday mishap, the sort of thing that a policeman encounters and which the author used to fill a few pages, but to those who went on to read the sequel it would ring a bell. Hopefully, such ploys will become a part of encouraging loyalty as the reader enters further into my fictional world of criminal investigation.
The same sort of thing happens with the story arcs of my characters. One of my detectives is an ex-nurse, a lesbian who's been with her partner for many years. They marry at the end of Book 2, are getting used to the routine of married life in Book 3, and by Book 4 are planning to adopt an orphaned child. This will happen in the latest story.
Don Marquis, had many humorous and accurate things to say about writing and publishing and life in general, including:
'A sequel is an admission that you've been reduced to imitating yourself'
In this way, writing a series can become a trap, though, I'm not yet tired of my protagonist. Staying true to my series entails being highly organised about details of my characters' lives and I've compiled profiles giving all sorts of things, including their birth dates, physical characteristics, hobbies and phobias. Authors more famous than me have been caught out making mistakes by their fans. Lawrence Block, of private investigator Matt Scudder fame, admits that he's vague about what car his hero drives, and is often corrected at book signings.
I've written about twenty short stories and standalone novellas, and having The End constantly in sight certainly leads to a different writing technique. I have to make the best of my resources, nursing them in much the same way as when running low on rice or shampoo; there's not the replenishment of writing a series novel.
My standalone stories tend to be more linear, with a beginning, a middle and an end, which structure offers its own satisfaction, for it's more than day to day life gives us!
Most of my standalone stories are one-offs, though I always intended to revisit the adventures of an American Civil War veteran, which I did this summer by penning a sequel to a short story written in 2014. That era of history is so complicated, that I realised I'll be writing four stories instead of the planned three.
The standalone stories, I've written, tend to tackle one issue: bereavement, mistaken identity, the end of an era, being cursed, betrayal, male friendship, and how we live with ghosts of different kinds. My detective series features many modern day issues that when combined impinge on crime, including long-term unemployment, homelessness, drug addiction, alcoholism, illegal immigrants, human trafficking and slavery.
Do you write standalones or are your novels part of a series?
What problems have you encountered with either form?
Do you like reading series—which ones? I must admit, I like to start with the first story in a series, and am put off if I can't find it!
As I embark on my fifth Cornish Detective novel, I've got a few plot strands to draw upon from the preceding stories, including giving my protagonist a love life. I've previously carried over incidents from one book to another. For example, in my first novel, Who Kills A Nudist? a dishonest car mechanic died in a fire, trapped beneath a car. It looked like he'd caused the inferno himself, through careless use of a blowtorch flame and by storing an excess amount of petrol in unsuitable containers, but he was actually a victim of a serial killer whose identity was revealed in the second story, The Perfect Murderer.
To someone only reading Book 1, this victim's death appeared to be an everyday mishap, the sort of thing that a policeman encounters and which the author used to fill a few pages, but to those who went on to read the sequel it would ring a bell. Hopefully, such ploys will become a part of encouraging loyalty as the reader enters further into my fictional world of criminal investigation.
The same sort of thing happens with the story arcs of my characters. One of my detectives is an ex-nurse, a lesbian who's been with her partner for many years. They marry at the end of Book 2, are getting used to the routine of married life in Book 3, and by Book 4 are planning to adopt an orphaned child. This will happen in the latest story.
Don Marquis, had many humorous and accurate things to say about writing and publishing and life in general, including:
'A sequel is an admission that you've been reduced to imitating yourself'
In this way, writing a series can become a trap, though, I'm not yet tired of my protagonist. Staying true to my series entails being highly organised about details of my characters' lives and I've compiled profiles giving all sorts of things, including their birth dates, physical characteristics, hobbies and phobias. Authors more famous than me have been caught out making mistakes by their fans. Lawrence Block, of private investigator Matt Scudder fame, admits that he's vague about what car his hero drives, and is often corrected at book signings.
I've written about twenty short stories and standalone novellas, and having The End constantly in sight certainly leads to a different writing technique. I have to make the best of my resources, nursing them in much the same way as when running low on rice or shampoo; there's not the replenishment of writing a series novel.
My standalone stories tend to be more linear, with a beginning, a middle and an end, which structure offers its own satisfaction, for it's more than day to day life gives us!
Most of my standalone stories are one-offs, though I always intended to revisit the adventures of an American Civil War veteran, which I did this summer by penning a sequel to a short story written in 2014. That era of history is so complicated, that I realised I'll be writing four stories instead of the planned three.The standalone stories, I've written, tend to tackle one issue: bereavement, mistaken identity, the end of an era, being cursed, betrayal, male friendship, and how we live with ghosts of different kinds. My detective series features many modern day issues that when combined impinge on crime, including long-term unemployment, homelessness, drug addiction, alcoholism, illegal immigrants, human trafficking and slavery.
Do you write standalones or are your novels part of a series?
What problems have you encountered with either form?
Do you like reading series—which ones? I must admit, I like to start with the first story in a series, and am put off if I can't find it!
