Plotting a Mystery Series

The Foundation


Okay, you read my last post and you’ve decided to configure your novels as a series. The last thing you want to do is start in on the first book. You have to think through your goals for your series and your main character(s) and choose the elements accordingly. J.K. Rowling, for example, made a bold move when she decided to age Harry Potter throughout the series—not standard procedure for children’s books. But in the publishing industry, rules were made to be broken; at least some successful authors manage to get away with it. But since you shouldn’t plan on breaking the rules any time soon, let’s look at some of the essentials to consider when planning a series.

Character Growth
Closely connected to the aging of a character is the issue of character growth. Will your protagonist mature and change? Many fictional characters are markedly affected by their adventures and overcome their fears or develop new ones. Others embark on their capers and emerge unscathed—either physically or emotionally. Before you make the decision, you must understand the difference between “plot” and “story.”

Plot vs Storyline
According to the “official” definition (I found this in Meredith & Fitzgerald’s, Structuring Your Novel), in a plot, “the emphasis is on events . . . and the protagonist emerges from the novel with his character relatively unchanged.” On the contrary, character is preeminent in “story,” and the protagonist’s character changes, either by “character development or character disintegration.”

And character disintegration is not exactly the way to create a loyal fan base. For a series, it makes more sense have the character develop continually, unless the genre emphasizes physicality and adventure.

Setting
Your setting may be an integral part of the plot, as in my own Flowers of the Field series, or it may hover unobtrusively in the background. Whether the setting dictates plot elements, or merely serves as backdrop, it should convey an overall unity in the series. Readers come to expect realism or fantasy, the high life or small town America. Don’t disappoint them.

Consistency
Certain components of the cases should remain the same throughout the series. If you use an “unwilling sleuth” premise, don’t have her become a private eye in the next installment. But too much predictably can take the fun out of it for the reader. Unless you’re writing for a publisher or genre that demands formulaic writing, keep each plot fresh and somewhat unpredictable.

Spend some time brainstorming your possibilities, then return next week for Part II, “Character Roles.”

Birth of a Series

Why a series?

Once I knew that writing was the controlling factor in my life and was not going to release me, I began to experiment with different kinds of writing. I read widely on advice for authors, subscribed to Writers’ Digest and The Writer, and went to seminars, conferences, and book signings.

My early writing attempts were diverse—from poetry to a bilingual compilation of terms for dairymen to use with their Spanish-speaking hands. Although I became engaged in each of these projects at the time, the only type of writing I felt compelled to dedicate my life to was fiction.

In the advice I gleaned, I ran across the suggestion that writing short stories was good preparation for writing novels. Obligingly, I started drafting my first story. It was a children’s story, and turned out to be my first professional publication. (That’s the kind you get paid for.)

But, even though I loved the short story format, I longed to get involved in a full-length work. Since selling a book is a completely different process from selling a story, I returned to my resources, notably Writer’s Market. At this point I was setting the course for my career, so I looked at industry statistics and trends to help with my decision.

Bottom line—I discovered that readers of novels are particularly drawn to series. Human beings seem to derive comfort from connecting with a series character. I guess it’s the same reason we watch weekly programs on television and sit in the same place every time we go to a class or attend church.

Ultimately, my choice was a marketing decision. I decided that if I were going to go to all the trouble of writing something, I needed to choose a format that people were buying, whether it was editors or readers. At the time I began writing, it was easier to sell a series than a single book. Generally speaking, no one makes money on the first novel—its role is to build a name and a readership. The idea is that if someone discovers a writer he or she enjoys, that reader will go back and find the first books in the series and read the ones that were missed.

I then determined that writing novels would be my “retirement plan.” I thought once I got into a routine, I would be able to write a book a year, maybe even two, and I could retire comfortably in a cabin in the woods, like Thoreau, my high school idol, and live happily ever after.

Reality struck when the first two novels took four years each to write and self-publish. So I am in the process of developing other plans that I hope will provide more security. In the meantime, I have been teaching to support my writing habit.

NEXT: Watch for a post on how to plot a series.

Birth of a Blog

Some of you have been following Torrie Madison’s adventures as an aspiring journalist and unwilling sleuth in the Flowers of the Field mystery series. It seems that she inevitably stumbles across evildoers in her travels. But rather than let the intrigue ruin her vacation, she rises to the challenge and does her part to bring the villains to justice before they can do away with her.

The inquiries I hear over and over are from readers who want to know how much of my own adventures are incorporated into the story. (Because I can never have a normal vacation—bizarre things tend to happen to me when I travel. All the better for plot development—but at time quite harrowing in real life.)

Like the time I accidentally went into the heart of Mexico without getting a visa. And the time my daughter and I had to walk back to the hostel in the middle of the night because the guidebook neglected to mention that the Paris Metro closes before the Latin Quarter does. But those are different stories. And probably will be some day.

I have always loved to travel, and this series came about, at least in part, due to that love. My strategy is to travel to the scene of the crime and research intensely in order to make the plots more realistic and believable. That has been my MO for both Fireweed Glow and Sunflower Dungeon, and third on the way, tentatively titled Bluebonnet Meltdown: Hammer in the Stone.

I have been contemplating a blog for some time, and decided this would be the best way to answer all those questions that come in from my readers. I have also been giving workshops on writing-related topics and mentoring aspiring authors one on one as they endeavor to craft the stories that are burning within them.

Writing about my personal life and all the little day to day details seems a bit vain—and boring. So what I envision is a combination of details about the research and plotting that went into my own writing, and insider secrets, as well as some of the things in my life that impelled me to become a writer.

To cover these diverse topics, I came up with Authors Apprenticeship. This is the name of the program I started to work with aspiring authors. While brainstorming with a friend as to what I should call the program, he suggested I use the metaphor of birth. While that works in many ways with the creative process, I didn’t want to be known as a “midwife.” With an apprenticeship I can be a “Word Wiz.” Suits me a lot better.

But an apprenticeship also describes my own journey from seven-year-old poet through junior high novelist and high school journalist, and finally a published author in my thirties.

After conceiving the idea and nurturing it to maturity, Authors Apprentice: The Blog is ready to be delivered. (I didn’t want to throw away a perfectly good analogy.)

I hope you’ll benefit from studying the writer’s craft, hearing about some of the inner workings of Torrie’s world, and perhaps be inspired by some of the milestones in my own life as I undertook the steps toward becoming a published author.