Thinking of writing a series? After hitting publish on my fifth & final Delilah Duffy Mystery, I’m thinking about what went right and wrong over our ten-year journey. Maybe you’ll benefit from my hindsight.
Do’s & Don’ts of Writing a Series.
Do fall in love with your story.
Consider your series a marriage rather than a one-night stand. To have any chance of happiness, you must be in love with it. A series is a big-ass commitment (more on that in my previous blog, Series Writing: Pros & Cons). You’re in trouble if you don’t love the world and the people you’ve created. A series means you promise to stick with your characters, setting, and formula for an extended time—like it or not.
Agatha Christie created the quirky Belgian detective Hercule Poirot but soon found him to be “insufferable” and a “detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep.” His popularity locked her into continuing the series, and she felt it her duty to give the public what they wanted. Thanks, Agatha!
Ah, if only all of us writers could have that problem, huh? Even so, it’d be a struggle to write 33 novels, 59 short stories, and 1 play featuring a guy you didn’t like. It’s like staying in a bad marriage for the kids. Better to be in love than to put up with it.
But how do you know if you’re ready for a series marriage? Well…
Don’t commit to a series until after the first book.
Hint at it, sure! Outline it, definitely! But don’t end your first novel with a cliffhanger and the promise of a sequel, even if you’re planning one. That way, if it doesn’t generate sales, or you hit publishing snafus as I did, or you fall out of love writing it, you’re free to move on to other projects and return to it later once your fanbase grows.
In any future series I write, I’ll be less commital with the first book.
In my first Delilah Duffy Mystery, Sea-Devil, I ended with too many questions and the few readers I had wanted answers, locking me into more. (BTW, you can get Sea-Devil for free if you sign up for my site). Adding to the pressure, the first book didn’t sell well. AND we made the mistake of placing it in the hands of a small press that did little marketing for us. We had zero control and zero sales. If it’d been a standalone book, making that mistake wouldn’t have been so bad. But with more books in the series coming, we couldn’t rely on the small press to go the distance, forcing us to buy out our contract and self-publish over a year later.
As a result, releasing Luna-Sea, the second book, took longer than expected.
Leading to my next don’t…
Don’t take too long between books.
To keep readers engaged in a series, you must give them what they want—more books ASAP! Otherwise, they’ll forget the story, and capturing their attention again will be challenging.
I made this mistake with my Delilah Duffy Series. Even after the snafu with transitioning from small press to self-publishing, I wrote on my timetable—not my fans’.
A book cover designer and a professional editor are the two most important investments a self-published author should make. Please, don't do these yourself. Share this on TwitterI let too many things come between me and writing when I should’ve been more organized and productive. I sometimes let two or three years pass without one. My readers had all but forgotten me. My next series will not suffer the same fate; hopefully, yours won’t either.
Don’t create loose ends without knowing how to tie them.
A writer must keep readers engaged in a series to lure them into the next book. To this end, I dropped in little mysteries. In one case, I left a clue in the second book that I hadn’t fully figured out how to use later. When later arrived, I didn’t know what to do with it. So, I put it off. And off. By the fifth book, I figured out a solution, but the time and energy it took weren’t worth the little mystery it created. I won’t add anything for suspense in a future series without a plan.
Do stick to your formula.
Whatever story “rules” established in the first book should be carried through until the end. In Sea-Devil, I established that Delilah was a book nerd and knew much about the ocean and sea life—things she related to her life. Facts about dead poets and ghost crabs didn’t move the story along, but fans enjoyed it. So, when an editor later recommended cutting out all this fluff for a better word count, I couldn’t do it. I kept my “rules” because fans expected it. Establishing the crime and suspects early became my rule after the first book, which helped offset the word count issue.
Do keep track of names, places, descriptions, and timelines.
In a series, writers must retain a lot of information. Having a master list of characters and their features, places, and calendar of events helped me keep things straight and stay consistent. You don’t want to use the same name twice or mess up your timeline. For a mystery, it’s even more important to track details—alibi charts, who-sat-where, and rough diagrams of crime scenes fill my notebooks. But all genres require clarity and consistency. You may forget that Emer is a dwarf, not an ogre—but your fans won’t.
Do recycle characters.
Keeping your master lists makes recycling characters easy (instead of always creating new ones). My Delilah Duffy Mysteries take place in a small island town, so reusing characters made sense and got easier as I went along. Interactions with some characters may stand out, begging for more cameos.
For me, Delilah Duffy’s great-grandmother Mamma Rose was never meant to be one of Delilah’s best cohorts but was just too funny not to use as much as possible. So, I did.
Delilah and her friend Mike witnessed an odd and funny tradition in Luna-Sea–two older men running naked into the cold ocean. This brief scene inspired the case in book three. And in Odd-a-Sea, the fifth book, I also brought back a few characters from previous cases. Using already-established characters was easier and used fewer words than creating new ones. Besides, minimizing characters reduces confusion (for readers and authors). And it’s nice, seeing them again.
Don’t recycle text.
I’ve never done this, but other writers have. My husband started reading a self-published mystery series a few years back. The first book was great. But in the second, he realized there were full sections of text copied and pasted from the first. Quickly, he became a disgruntled reader–he felt like he was reading the same book twice! So, he soon gave up on the books altogether.
In a series, some information needs repeating, if only to briefly remind readers. In the Delilah Duffy Mysteries, I always weaved in a small recap in the first chapter, catching everyone up. But these were written differently for each book and kept short.
Even though recaps are useful, writers should never copy and paste from one book to another. That’s just damn lazy. And churning out recycled books won’t earn true fans.
Do be smart with your titles.
It’s not easy coming up with a great title. In a series, it’s even harder because the titles need to connect. Some popular examples of connecting titles are numbers (as in The Women’s Murder Club Series by James Patterson or the Stephanie Plum Series by Janet Evanovich), alphabets (as in Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone Mysteries), repetitive words (like the use of cross in Patterson’s Alex Cross books), and puns or themes (as in soooo many cozy mysteries).
I went the pun route—typical for a cozy mystery though I’ve never felt I quite belonged in that category. Sea-Devil sounded like she-devil, a secret clue about the devilish angler fish. When I went with Luna-Sea for the second novel, I locked myself into using puns and the word “sea.” This got trickier going forward, and I wish I’d been smarter.
Some cozies own their “puniness” and deserve admiration. It’s hard not to giggle over popular series titles like Ellie Alexander’s Bakeshop Mysteries featuring Meet Your Baker and A Batter of Life or Death or Cate Conte’s Cat Café Mysteries with titles like Cat About Town and Purrder She Wrote.
But my puns fell short and felt forced by book three (though Sea-Crossed is my favorite title).
In a future series, I’ll go for simplicity.
Do after-the-fact editing.
One beauty of self-publishing is the freedom to fix mistakes. When I find them (or they’re pointed out to me), I jump onto KDP and resolve it. Over ten years, my writing skills have improved. Why wouldn’t I update my books to reflect that?
When my #PitchWars experience taught me proper editing, especially how to cut, I revisited my first book, Sea-Devil, and trimmed thousands of unnecessary words without changing the story. It’s like Sea-Devil went on a diet, and now she looks amazing!
Then, I did the same for the rest of the books, making them more “fit” for readers. These improvements created more polished, professional products. And I’m prouder of them. Besides, since nothing changed with the story itself, I didn’t betray existing readers by doing it.
Leading to another change…
Do consider the longevity of your book cover.
We found Sea-Devil’s original book cover via an online amateur art gallery. The artist generously gave us permission to use it. The small publisher we’d signed with loved the image, too, and went with it (another thing they didn’t have to do for us). But we thought it was perfect.
But this cover decision ended up being a mistake for a series. Series covers resemble each other, often having the same motif. We couldn’t replicate the artwork for subsequent books. Not without hiring a specialized artist, which was way out of our budget. We searched for similar images and digital book covers but couldn’t find anything that would match. How would readers recognize the second book when it looked nothing like the first?
We had to start over.
Two years after first publishing Sea-Devil, we re-published it with a new, professionally designed book cover. And with a better size and paper quality. We shouldn’t have relied on non-professionals—not us, our then-publishing company, or the original artist who wasn’t a book cover designer.
A book cover designer and a professional editor are the two most important investments a self-published author should make. Please, don't do these yourself. Share this on TwitterFor subsequent books, we’ve hired Damonza, the company that saved us from our cover woes, and they’ve produced amazing results:
So, think ahead with your first book cover if you’re writing a series. Having a plan in mind will save grief and do-overs later. And for that matter…
Do plan ahead.
Each book should have its individual 3-act structure—a beginning, middle, and end. In a mystery, those three acts involve a crime, the investigation, and the conclusion. But in a series, overarching plots and problems are woven into each installment. Delilah’s ongoing struggles feature a roller-coaster romance, family issues, and business woes. Oh, and a nemesis, too. I didn’t have much of a plan starting out. I was just thrilled to finish a book! But even a rough plan of what lay ahead would’ve offered…
- More precision, intention, and conciseness with my storytelling
- Quicker book releases
- And better marketing ability
So, if you’re going to write a series, plan ahead. And while you’re planning…
Do have a plan for series fatigue.
If you’re a well-organized plotter, experiencing series fatigue may never happen. Your outline should carry you through any writing lulls. (Here’s a funny but true explanation of pantsers versus plotters from Chuck Wendig.)
But after my second book, Luna-Sea, and with the series not doing well, my motivation and energy for Delilah waned. I got distracted by other projects. And I struggled with story ideas—ME with a blog devoted to writing prompts, of all people! I wish I’d had a plan to get myself back on track.
Your plan for series fatigue could be simple: lunch with your best book cheerleader for a pep talk or a weekend binge-reading your favorite genre to get you back in the writing mood. Or reading a favorite blog on writing prompts to generate ideas (hint, hint). Or as complicated as a backup outline to use for writer’s block emergencies. Figure out what helps you refocus and inspires your muse, so you can rely on those things when/if needed.
Don’t forget where you started.
This goes for the series and the writing itself. Keeping track of your character’s overall motivation and other driving factors is good—things that probably won’t change much. Delilah Duffy wanted a second chance at love and success on the island she loved as a child. Those goals didn’t change and carried her through each difficult case.
As for the writing, it’s a joy to return to the first story and still feel proud of my earliest effort while seeing how far I’ve come as a writer. And how the story’s roots took hold in the first place. More on my Mystery Series Love Story here.
Do enjoy series perks.
By the fifth book, I felt more writerly freedom. Not only was I in it, but I was also nearly finished. When I started writing the fifth and final book, I thought, okay, this is it… what do I want? What would bring this to its ultimate conclusion—for me? It sounds selfish, I know, but it’s like this… I started it trying to fit a mold. Later, I kept the boundaries while exploring what I loved (like a nemesis) and needed for Delilah to be a meaningful character rather than a static amateur detective or cozy-Hallmark-like doll (like anxiety and love problems). For Odd-a-Sea, I tossed the mold out—who needs it?
Three years later… sure!
Three murders? Absolutely!
Drones and an animatronic gator? Hell, yes.
Starting the book three years later than Pyra-Sea ended gave me the freedom to live out some of what I needed for Delilah’s closure. And it’s my series. I’ll jump ahead if I want to.
Making it to the end of the series is a fantastic feeling, not just because it’s another book done but because I got to finish it just the way I wanted. Writing the last book is like becoming a high school senior—you’re less awkward, more confident, and ready to have fun. And publishing is graduation. Ah.
All that said, never say never. Falling in love with Delilah’s story, I may have to return to it someday. If Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can bring Sherlock Holmes back from the dead due to popular demand, then I can definitely devise more mysteries for Delilah Duffy.
For more on series writing, check out my mystery series writing prompts and the pros and cons of writing one.
Check out my blog for more writing prompts, motivation, and positivity. Also, get a free copy of my first book!
Share your series do’s and don’ts below!
