Stand-Alones and Sequels and Series, Oh My!

But first, a word from our sponsor. Take a gander at that cover up there. Ain’t it purty? That’s my new ménage, Jessalina’s Pets, and it’ll be out around the end of August. If you’d like a peek at the blog post and photos that inspired the book, just follow the link right here. The story was almost a standard M/F, but that photo of Jensen Ackles practically forced me to add the second hero. Fin’s whole personality is right there in that pic. I probably owe Jensen money.

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Right now I’m in my finished-a-book-and-floundering-around phase, while I sift through ideas and abandoned WIPs in search of the one that grabs me. I could save myself a ton of anguish if I’d just write a series. Then there’d be no question which book was coming next. I’ve got a number of series ideas, and I’ve always been infected with sequelitis. Plus Siren loves series. (Serieses?) I could put together a bunch of characters and a multi-book story arc and fill up my dance card for months.

And yet, I’m pretty sure my next book will end up as another stand-alone.

That’s pretty much how my mind works. I’m always primed for the next new idea. It hits and I run with it. I finish the book. Then something in the book sparks ideas for a sequel, or sometimes a number of sequels. I’ve even written a couple. However, I draw the line at calling these a series. My version of a series is a bunch of stand-alone sequels strung together by a common thread. Read one, read several, read ‘em in any order, it doesn’t make a difference because each book is a world unto itself, with no dangling threads left behind. Even if you come in on the middle, you’ll still get a satisfying read.

What do I consider a true series? Something like Harry Potter or Stephen King’s Dark Tower. The books can each be read on their own, but read in order, one after the other, they tell a single massive story. I had one of those planned out years ago, with a beginning, middle and end. Unfortunately for me, I’m a slow writer, and the first book never got off the ground. I still have all the notes and huge chunks of prose in my closet. Maybe I’ll get back to it someday.

Sequels are easier. Legacy happened because I couldn’t let go of the characters from Belonging. There’s still a third book sitting in the back of my brain, waiting for the plot to gel. I’ve also written a YA offshoot, and I could at some point write the book that wraps up their story for good. Would that make it a series? There’d be more than three books involved, so that lets out a trilogy, and it would tell a single big story. I just feel like a true series should be more than four books and a sidebar. How many “(Whatever) in Death” books has Nora Roberts/J. D. Robb written? Now there’s a series for you.

That’s the other definition of series: a bunch of books connected by a common cast of characters or background, overarching story arc optional. I could probably do one of those. Like I said, I’ve had ideas. The shapeshifters who work at the seaside bar, finding love at the Jersey Shore. The family of cowboy vampire hunters (which also grew out of Belonging. Annie Stanton, nee Colt, is a former slayer, the boys’ aunt, and the one who trained them. Sequels just seem to happen to me). The multi-book story of the alien invasion, with people finding love along the way. That one’s closest to my idea of what a “true” series should be. I’ve already got some vague ideas and characters. All I need are some solid plots and I’d be set for months.

More like years, or decades. I write really slow. I think that’s the real reason I haven’t committed myself to a series. Once I start the stupid thing, it would take me forever. I’m not one of those writers who pops out a new book every month. I wish I was. I could write five or six series at the same time and make a decent living at this. At least a better one than what I’ve got right now.

Until I get the self-discipline in gear, looks like I’m stuck with stand-alones. And sequels, which are basically stand-alones inspired by a previous book. If I do enough of those, I suppose I could call it a series, after a decade or so.

At the moment I’m toying with ideas for sequels to Jessalina’s Pets. I left the villain in a bad state. Yeah, he was a dick, but he also looks like Ian Somerhalder. I want to write a book about him so I can have that image in my head. Then there’s the guy whose shapeshifter breed is practically extinct and the threesome’s plans to rectify that, which is going to require new female characters and a lot of sex scenes. If I write these, I still won’t have a series, but maybe I can squeeze out a trilogy. I want to see how sales for the first one go before I commit myself.

In the meantime, I’m still working through my list of WIPs, all of which are stand-alones. For now. My sequelitis might kick in, or I might end up with an accidental series after all. Hey, it’s writing. Anything is possible.

Seeds

I just wrapped up a major editorial wrestling match with my latest manuscript. The story’s now 1000 words longer, with a couple scenes added to flesh out relationships and another sex scene just ‘cause. I hope I’ve plugged up all the plot holes now. I’m betting it’ll have to go through another pass before it’s ready for the readers’ eyes. That little extra polish never hurt.

A lot of the plot problems came about because this was an unexpected sequel. That’s both the excitement and the drawback to being a pantser. Nothing’s planned. I created a book that demanded I write it, then had to make sure everything jived with the previous book. It’s called continuity, and it’s a bear to deal with if you’re writing comic books or episodic television. Or, as I just found out, unexpected sequels.

One of the questions I wanted to answer when I wrote Belonging was, “If vampires are technically dead, how can they have sex?” Partway through writing that one, another question arose: “Can the undead reproduce?” I know vampire Darla managed it on Angel, but I was never a regular viewer of Angel so I don’t know how she pulled it off. I’d have to come up with my own explanation.

Let’s assume you need a living womb to produce a child. That means human mother, vampire father. I’d already established how the undead can have sex. But are the undead fertile? Can they even procreate with humans if they’re another species? Is there any way I can explain all this without contradicting the first book?

Yes, I could. In Belonging I’d established that a diet of vampire blood made a vampire different from the norm: warmer body temperature, able to eat real food, capable of having sex without a blood infusion. Supposedly it could restore fertility as well. As for the compatibility question, maybe vampire blood fed to the human mom would fix that problem too. We are what we eat, after all.

Now stir in an evil vampire who’s figured all this out, and wants to create a race of vampire/human hybrid slaves, and voila, you’ve got a sequel.

How to get my heroes involved? Back to the first book. Toward the end of Belonging Wallace the vampire rescues a little girl from a flock attack. His friends the Stantons adopt her. The kid’s gotta go to school somewhere. By putting her in a local preschool she became a perfect plot device, allowing Wallace’s boyfriend Jeremy and preschool teacher Colleen to meet and get the story rolling. I love it when an unplanned plan comes together.

But wait, there’s more. How about giving the boys an even more personal stake in the story than simply protecting the heroine? In the previous episode, we revealed Wallace became a slayer when vampires kidnapped his girlfriend and murdered their infant son. Suppose there was more to it than that? What if Wallace’s woman was taken on the evil vampire’s orders, to serve as a broodmare for his hybrid army? Wallace doesn’t find this out until they begin investigating kidnap attempts on the heroine. His whole life was changed by this incident. Now it’s come back to bite him again. Think he’s pissed? You betcha. This is why on TV shows old friends of the cop/detective hero are always getting iced. I didn’t even have to create a new character. It was all there in the first book. Damn, I’m good.

Same for the subplot involving the slayer. Years ago the Preacher killed Jeremy’s vampire family, in a cameo appearance in the first book. Wallace would want him to suffer for that, even if Jeremy doesn’t. Guess which slayer holds vital information regarding their case? What will Wallace do when he finds out?

This is how you write a sequel where no sequel was planned. You work with what you’ve got. You go through the first story looking for seeds that can be cultivated into plots and characters. Everything grows out of what’s already there. Whether it’s planned out before the first word hits paper or thrown on after the fact, it’s the end result that matters. Do it right and the reader will never know the difference.

And yes, eventually there will be a third book. Again, an idea in the second book begat another plot. Now I’ll have to go through two previous books to make sure everything matches up. There has to be an easier way to make a living.

How to Grow a Series

Let me rephrase that: this is how I grow a series. In general. I’m a pantser, so my approach to any novel, let alone a series, tends to be haphazard. I don’t sit down and plot out a nine-book epic with every single twist and plot point outlined and described. God bless those who can. It’d be a lot easier if I could, but my mind doesn’t work that way.

Tip one: don’t wait for inspiration. You can’t expect your muse to drop in on a regular basis. She may go on strike or get caught up in a CSI marathon or something and leave you holding the keyboard with a blank screen to fill. Forget about her. Sit down and write. You may find your best inspirations happen when you’re in the middle of working. As your fingers fly, so do your thoughts. It’s like dominos. One idea knocks over others, and so on down the line.

Tip two: Ask questions. Answering them results in more ideas. Before you know it, you’ve got the background for a series.

For example, suppose you’re writing about Billy and Susie – or, because this is romance, Blake and Cameron. (Or Blake and Trevor, if you’re writing M/M.) Right in the middle of a tense scene, Cameron suddenly blurts out that her sister has been arrested. Huh? Cameron has a sister? Since when? Never mind. She’s got one now. Three brothers, too, and every one of them is involved in some cause or other. That’s why Cameron never talks about them. The whole family has stories to tell and people to fall in love with. Or maybe Blake lets slip that he comes from a dynasty of assassins, but he left the business because he faints at the sight of blood. What about the rest of his family? What if one of them falls in love with their target? What if one is competing with another assassin for a lucrative government contract? Or is being hunted him/herself? There’s a trilogy right there.

If you’re writing paranormal, as I do, it gets even better. Like werewolves? In a wolf pack, only the alphas mate and breed. Depending on the size of the pack, you could have up to a dozen stories about desperate, sex-starved low-rankers trying to find love behind their alpha’s back. Would they try for other wolves, or go after humans because there’s less competition? Or try to seduce the alpha? All sorts of possibilities abound.

Moving into personal territory, here’s how a single book of mine ended up as a trilogy. I wrote Belonging, my M/M vampire story, to deal with two ideas: the concept of a person raised by vampires, and how the undead can have sex. Plus because I wanted to write Supernatural fan fiction, which is how it ended up M/M. But never mind. While answering these questions, others arose. If vampires can have sex (I figured out a way around the undead problem), can they also reproduce? Can an undead woman get pregnant, or would they have to use a human surrogate? What kind of abilities would the resulting child have?

Right in the middle of writing one book, I suddenly found the plot for another. My M/M couple becomes M/M/F when they come to the aid of a woman who has vampires chasing her. My vampire lead discovers her past and his intersect, as an incident from his human life (mentioned in the first book) comes back to haunt him. Answering the initial question – can vampires have sex? – led to the second – can vampires have children? – which led to a second book. I even got to re-use the main characters, who I really liked. Yay, less work for me.

It didn’t end there. I decided to tie off a loose end from the first book by bringing back a cameo character for a subplot. The slayer who destroyed Jeremy’s vampire family only appeared for half a page, but he left a lot of unresolved issues in his wake. He ended up playing a larger part in the sequel than I’d expected. His backstory hit me while I was writing the flashback chapter in Belonging – remember what I said about inspiration while writing? – so I already knew his whos, whats and whys. I just needed a where for him.

And I found it. My muse waylaid me as I was walking across the library parking lot. The sequel had left its own set of loose ends, in particular the other female victims of the book’s vampire conspiracy. One of them meets up with the slayer. Sparks fly and conflicts ensue. I’m currently sweating over the first draft of yet another sequel to what initially started out as a standalone book. Ta-da! My first series.

Tip Three: when an idea hits you, run with it. At one point in the third book, the heroine researches vampire slayers on the Internet. She comes across a reference to the Colt brothers, a family of slayers living in Texas. This was my little shout-out to the Winchesters for starting it all, and to Jared and Jensen, both Texas boys. Then I remembered: Annie Stanton, my retired slayer from the first book, hails from Texas, and she comes from a large family. Was her maiden name Colt? That mob down there could be her nephews, with a few nieces thrown in. Maybe she helped train them, and still sends them leads. Holy Joe, it’s a spinoff!

Tip four: know when to quit. I’m going to leave those ideas on the back burner while I concentrate on getting the other two books into (hopefully) sellable shape. In the meantime, I can always jot notes and ideas as they occur to me. If you’re looking to start your own series and don’t know what to write about, look no further than your current WIP, or maybe a previous book. Odds are the seeds of a series are sitting right in front of you in the form of a character, idea or line of dialogue, just waiting for some inspiration to help them sprout. Happy growing!