Stand-Alones With Series Potential

I've been thinking a lot about my regency paranormal romance, BITE ME, YOUR GRACE. While I had an agent, I did my best to pretend it didn't exist while it was supposedly being shopped. Instead I focused on the first two in my BRIDES OF PROPHECY series and getting them ready for a professional eye. That, I still believe is a good thing since one of the golden rules of being on submission is to concentrate on other work.

But now it's time to think about that regency. It is, by far the most fun book I have and the most fun to write. Also, it is in the best shape of my projects and has been read by more people than the others.

Almost all who have read it have asked: "Is there a series?" Or "Why don't you have any more historicals?"

Hmmmm....why don't I? Besides my former agent never bringing it up and my attachment to my "pet" projects, I have no excuse.

It's true that BITE ME, YOUR GRACE likely can't have a direct sequel as all loose ends were tied up....but....

Is Ian, my vampire duke, the only immortal blood drinker hiding in the ton? There could totally be more. Who was Ian's second in command? Whoever he is, he'd have to be quite alpha and studly. And what happens when Ian and his bride leave London for an extended honeymoon? Silas McNaught is his temporary replacement...and though my beta readers know what his story is centuries down the road, we don't know how his first stint as a Lord vampire went. How did London's vampires tolerate having a new master? And a Scot at that?

And let's leave London for a minute. Who are the Lords of Britain's other regions? I bet the Lord of Cornwall lives in a spooky castle. 

Oh, the ideas are spinning! Happy Friday, all!

Speaking of Series...

Yesterday I got together with my writer buddies, Bonnie R. Paulson and Shelley Martin. With them I discovered what's been holding me back on my latest project. Since it's a series, I've been having trouble figuring out how and when to work in details from previous books...and just how much information to fit in. More on this later.

That's when we began discussing the two main types of series novels. Sequential Series and Stand-Alone Series.

A Stand-Alone Series is one in which you could read the books in any order without missing anything. They can feature different characters like Judith McNaught's regency novels, or follow the same character on different adventures, Like Nancy Drew. How that girl stayed he same age from the 70's on, I'd like to know. :)

A Sequential Series is one in which it's best to read the books in order so you can follow a continuing story line. They may feature different characters, like the Dark Hunters or the Black Dagger Brotherhood novels, or the same character, like the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series.

But though there's a continuing story in the series, each novel, especially in romance, has stand-alone features, like a love story.

This is what I'm going for in mine. Today's mission will be to cut a little more back story that I believe unnecessary to the plot of this novel.

Oh, and contrary to what my progress bar for THE QUEEN OF PROPHECY says, I have been getting stuff done with it. I've just been cutting as much as I've been writing. :) See my post on this Monster Project for more explanation.

For those writing a series, which type are you working on? What problems are you attacking and what solutions have you found? 

Summer rerun: Series Novels

Many of my favorite novels are part of a series, and I'm willing to bet that's the case with many people. A lot of naturally want to write a series of our own because we love to read them, and because one's characters keep having adventures. Writing a series, however is a whole new animal compared to a stand-alone project. Especially with a romance series, since there must be a stand-alone love story in every installment.

One of the biggest issues, in my opinion is blending the stand-alone story with the continuing story of the series. In my first novel, I botched this badly. However, I still think that the story and characters are awesome, so I have passed it on to my Saintly beta readers in a bid to fix it. In the meantime I am composing an outline of the series itself, and then I will write mini outlines of the individual books in hopes of discovering which key points can be emphasized in which books.

One of the leading geniuses of blending individual love stories with a continuing saga is J.R. Ward with her Black Dagger Brotherhood novels. The romance unfolds naturally amidst the backdrop of the brutal war the Brotherhood fights. Future characters are introduced to the reader smoothly, and often teasingly.

Another team of authors that do a great job with a series are Stella and Audra Price. Their Eververse series is like the ultimate guilty pleasure soap opera. The reader eavesdrops on multiple characters with multiple plots that build and unfold throughout each consecutive novel.

What are some of your favorite series? What do the authors do that "Works," in your opinion?

This Series Totally Grabbed Me.

...I know this is again unrelated to writing or paranormal romance, but it's my blog, so there. :) Besides, at least it's about reading. I haven't gotten anything done for the past few days because I was devouring the awesome MG series: WARRIORS by Erin Hunter (Kate Cary, Cherith Baldry, and Tui Sutherland) 


I'm not usually into children's books, but since my son recommended them AND I love cats, I had to give them a try. The result? HOLY AWESOME, BATMAN!!!


There's nonstop action, well rounded characters, intrigue, forbidden love, and a gender-equal society!!!


So far I've only read the main series and I can't wait to read the others. The only thing I didn't like was the inaccurate depiction of feral cat life, but that was easily forgiven for the brilliant writing, depth, and positive lessons the novels taught. As much as the HARRY POTTER novels were fistfuls of awesome, you gotta admit that Harry didn't always do the right thing. :)


Anyway, when I find a series this good, not only do I want to spread the word, but it motivates me to work harder on my writing.


Have a great day, all!


P.S. I apologize to a certain friend for slacking on my beta reading, but I know if she reads these books, she'll totally understand.

I'm Starting to Feel Like a Real Writer!

Those of you that have been following me on Twitter and Facebook have seen that I've been on a major workaholic frenzy with my latest project, breaking 1K a day almost every day. I've even been taking my laptop to the bar on my Friday night out and writing between dart games.

When I'm not writing, the story continues to spin in my head. And this story has been doing some interesting things. My characters are realizing things about themselves before I do. And though this story isn't part of my main series, it's showing me things about those novels.

I owe a lot of this new inspiration and progress to my awesome crit partners, Jamie De Bree, Erica Chapman, Shelley Martin and Millie Mclain. Their comments and feedback have helped my stories grow into tangible dreams. Shelley even did a blog post not so subtly urging me to deal with a certain subplot from the first book in my series. The way I'd imagined it would have gone a lot easier, but her way will make my characters freak, which is more fun for the reader. Thanks, Shelley.

So what's been going on in your writing journey?

What's Your Favorite Paranormal Hero?

Forget the whole "Team Jacob" vs. "Team Edward" thing. For one thing, they're so limited. What I am talking about today goes far beyond opposing creations of the same author, or even two or three authors. I am talking about what cover description, what "creature feature," if I may, that is most likely to tempt you to take out your wallet and a book to the cashier.

Back in the late 80's and early '90s, when the paranormal romance genre came into being, the choices were fairly limited. You had the ghosts, classic brooding vampires (that never wanted to be vampires), and in a rare case, you'd get a sorcerer or a Djinn.

Now we have fey, selkies, satyrs, mermaids, were-everything (Authors, Stella and Audra Price even have weresnakes! Check out Entwined by Fate) witches, sorcerers, ghosts, demons, djinn, and classic vampires.

Even with all these choices, I still gravitate towards vampires. To me they are the epitome of all that is dark and sexy. Witches and sorcerers are a close second, because I've always loved magic.

I've never been all that into ghosts because face it, they're dead! I suppose the same would go for zombies. I've grown up on too many zombie flicks to even remotely considered an animated corpse as a sex object. Howver, there's a disclaimer. I have yet to read a zombie romance, so though I'm reluctant, I will give em a shot.

As for werewolves, at first I cringed at the thought of a werewolf romance. I'm a cat person and the smell of dog makes gag. To have a canine lover that would reek when he came out of the rain? Ewww! But I've read so many good werewolf stories that, if recommended to me, I'll give em a try. Favorites so far are the Kitty series by Carrie Vaughn and 13 to Life by the awesome Shannon Delany.

So which monsters and creatures are your favorites? What turns your dials up to ten? Which paranormal heroes do you loathe? And why?

Guest Post from Paranormal Romance Author, Elisabeth Naughton: On Writing a Series

I am beyond thrilled to announce that one of my new favorite authors has agreed to appear today and do a guest post! Without further ado, I present, Elisabeth Naughton!

Thanks so much to Brooklyn Ann for inviting me to guest post today! For those of you who don’t already know me, I write dark paranormal novels deeply rooted in Greek mythology. The second book in my Eternal Guardians series – ENTWINED - just released last month. If you’re a paranormal fan, ENTWINED has got it all - seething demons, conniving gods, betrayal, heartbreak, magick and a wicked hot love story.

I absolutely love writing the Eternal Guardians series because there are so many threads from which to build. The first book in the series – MARKED (May 2010) – grew from a spark. I knew I wanted to write something about Greek mythology. I knew I wanted it to be dark and sexy. And I knew I wanted this big warrior dude to have to find a woman who didn’t know she was linked to a world she never thought existed, fall for her but be trapped because he knew by finding her, he was sealing her death. When I started writing MARKED, that’s about as much as I knew. But the story grew from those minute threads and from there blossomed into an entire series.

For me, the key to writing an ongoing series is developing the secondary characters enough in each book so that readers are eager to read their stories. One reviewer who recently read ENTWINED said, “…the building of the secondary stories has me itching for the next book.” In my opinion, the secondary characters and their struggles have to be as enticing as the main story, because when the main story is done, those secondary struggles and characters are the gems that will bring readers back for more.

I admit to not being a highly organized writer. I don’t plot out every moment ahead of time. Generally, I know the basic turning points of a book when I sit down to write it, but the secondary characters grow and develop as the main story is unfolding. Take Orpheus, for example. He’s a secondary character who pops up in MARKED. He lives in Argolea, his brother Gryphon is an Argonaut, he was passed over by the gods to serve with the Argonauts even though he’s just as big and strong as they are and he’s linked to the ancient hero Perseus, just like his brother. But he’s got a secret. One deadly wicked secret that, if anyone knew, they’d kill him for. When I wrote MARKED, I had no idea just how Orpheus fit into the world. Who is he, really? Because I didn’t know much about him (other than what I listed above), I thought he might fade into the background as the books went on. But no, he’s grown and changed and become as integral to my world as the Argonauts are. His story begins in MARKED, unfolds a touch in ENTWINED, and explodes in TEMPTED (book 3, release date TBA). He’s not an Argonaut. He’s a secondary character. But because his transformation has become so important, guess who’ll be getting book 4? You guessed it: Orpheus.

I love when readers write to tell me they can’t wait to read so-and-so’s book. With the release of ENTWINED I get daily emails asking, “Who’s next? Who is Isadora’s hero? What about Demetrius? What about Orpheus? What about…(fill in the blank)?” As a writer, these are questions I ask myself all the time (and my poor critique partner who listens to me ramble about this series on a daily basis). So it’s very cool to know that readers are as invested in my world as I am.

Do I know where this series will ultimately end? Not entirely. I have a vision of what the very end looks like. But I don’t know the specific steps along the way. Unearthing those story gems is what I love most about writing this series. And as long as they’re there to unearth, I’ll continue writing them.

How about you? Are you a fan of ongoing series? What is it about a series that makes you salivate for the next book? I’ve got books to give away today! Let’s pick two winners from the comments. Your choice of either MARKED or ENTWINED.

Happy Reading!

***

A previous junior-high science teacher, Elisabeth Naughton now writes sexy romantic adventure and paranormal novels full time from her home in western Oregon where she lives with her husband and three children. Her debut release, Stolen Fury, heralded by Publisher’s Weekly as “A rock-solid debut,” was a 2010 double RITA® nominee by Romance Writers of America in the Best First Book category and the Best Romantic Suspense category. When not writing, Elisabeth can be found running, hanging out at the ball park or dreaming up new and exciting adventures. Visit the author’s website at www.elisabethnaughton.com

Thanks so much for appearing, Elisabeth! Contest winners will be drawn on Wednesday, however, of you don't win, check out this tidbit of news I got direct from Ms. Naughton herself: "As for MARKED...do you have an ereader? If so you can download it free from

B&N right now and next week (starting on the 15th) Amazon is making it free
for the Kindle through the end of the month."

The 1st book vs. the sequel

I recently read a blog post in which the author said that the first book in a series is always better. I'm inclined to disagree. I enjoyed Lover Eternal better than Dark Lover, and The Laughing Corpse more than Guilty Pleasures.

However, compared to Pillars of the Earth, World Without End (though still an awesome novel) fell flat. Kitty and the Midnight Hour was a teensy bit better than Kitty Goes to Washington. And The Drawing of the Three was so different from The Gunslinger that one can't make a comparison.

What makes a first book superior to its sequel, or vice-versa?

I have a few theories for each circumstance:

1st book is better because:

1.) The book was intended as a stand-alone, but publishers or maybe readers demanded a sequel.

2.) The book was hoped to be part of a series, but the author was afraid things wouldn't pan out, so twisted it into stand-alone status so much that series world/character building was shunted aside too much for subsequent books to have a good impact.

2nd book is better because:

1.) The author was so focused on world-building that the 1st book was an info dump.

2.) Author was still a virgin-writer for the 1st book and his/her story telling skills have improved.

What are your thoughts?

Writing a Series

Many of my favorite novels are part of a series, and I'm willing to bet that is the case with many people. A lot of naturally want to write a series of our own because we love to read them, and because one's characters keep having adventures. Writing a series, however is a whole new animal compared to a stand-alone project. Especially with a romance series, since there must be a stand-alone love story in every installment.

One of the biggest issues, in my opinion is blending the stand-alone story with the continuing story of the series. In my first novel, I botched this badly. However, I still think that the story and characters are awesome, so I have passed it on to my Saintly beta readers in a bid to fix it. In the meantime I am composing an outline of the series itself, and then I will write mini outlines of the individual books in hopes of discovering which key points can be emphasized in which books.

One of the leading geniuses of blending individual love stories with a continuing saga is J.R. Ward with her Black Dagger Brotherhood novels. The romance unfolds naturally amidst the backdrop of the brutal war the Brotherhood fights. Future characters are introduced to the reader smoothly, and often teasingly.

Another team of authors, not as well known, that do a great job with a series are Stella and Audra Price. Their Eververse series is like the ultimate guilty pleasure soap opera. The reader eavesdrops on multiple characters with multiple plots that build and unfold throughout each consecutive novel.

What are some of your favorite series? What do the authors do that "Works," in your opinion.