What are the essential steps in developing a fiction series? Plot, theme, character arcs? Precisely those I didn’t take while I wrote my own…
You would think with three volumes and a prequel in development over four years, this might have occurred to me? As it is, things were less planned and more organic. It took those four years for me to work things out (but recently writing coach Savannah Gilbo outlined it in five easy steps!).
The four broad-brush steps for developing a fiction series are:
1: Identify your series theme and story themes
My series theme seems to be belonging, expressed through the found-family trope. My story theme varies a little with each book.
- Book One is about self-knowledge and agency
- Book Two is about loyalty and family
- Book Three is about resistance and sacrifice.
Recurring through-lines across the books include self-worth, trust, identity, honour and rejection of authority.
2: Determine your series genre and story genres
The series is straight-up fantasy action-adventure. The story genre is superficially the same, except books one and two
include elements of the pursuit-Western, while book three goes into infiltration and assassination territory.
3: Map your character arcs across your series
How do my protagonists respond to the challenges, and, more importantly, how do they change?
- In book one, Jo challenges her misbelief and defies fate (mostly).
- For book two, Jo becomes a mother to her found-family.
- By the end of Book three, Jo is confident she knows who she is and what she wants.
4: Develop the antagonist hierarchy for your series
Usually a linked series format has escalating stakes and an escalating threat from the bad guys. Some writing coaches call this an antagonist hierarchy, we move up the chain through the henchmen or minor villains until we reach the the Big Boss Villain.
In my series we begin with the Vipers and the Tracker; book two brings the elite Vipers and their commander, a fire mage and the Brotherhood. Book three goes wild with the Brotherhood on home turf, the Coterie, the Lances, the Emperor and most dangerous of all, the Sisters of the Scildan.
Include antagonist wants, needs, misbeliefs
The antagonists must have their own recognisable wants, needs and misbeliefs to make them a credible mirror to the protagonist.
Radek wants to hunt down the rebels, his need is validation and status. He suffers the misbelief that his Vipers are invincible.
Straka wants to bring the hunt to a successful end. He needs to prove he is the master strategist. This breeds is misbelief; there’s no one smarter or more capable than him on the battle field.
The seer, Ash Vihari wants revenge but she needs to keep her daughters alive. Her misbelief; she cannot defy the emperor.
I have so many antagonists in City of Vipers, we could be here all day with their wants, needs and misbeliefs. We’ll save those for another time.
5: Brainstorm the plot of your series and each story
The series plot took me all of five minutes; first pursuit; second pursuit. For the third book, turn about and take the war to the enemy; bring down the entire empire in order to survive.
Each story took a little more plotting. There’s far more self-doubt, morally dubious decisions, and lies on the way to the final-act battles in each story.
That which came before
My prequel novella foreshadows many of the themes, wants, needs and misbeliefs of the series. It piggy-backs on the work of the three main stories and features many of the characters.
From the title, Sisters of the Scildan, I knew exactly what the main theme would be from the start; sisterhood. Two sisters by blood on opposing sides, a third sister by friendship caught in the middle. I encapsulated my themes in the tag-line: ‘duty, loyalty, sisterhood.’